


Juno Steel and the Company Man

by MrBurner



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Brainwashing, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Identity stuff, Loss of Identity, M/M, Mind Control, noir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25249336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrBurner/pseuds/MrBurner
Summary: Following the THEIA Soul incident, a Dark Matters investigation sucks Juno into stuff he wanted to leave behind. A Soul prototype has been stolen, and after working like, Really Hard to save Hyperion from gentrifying AI once, Juno is unwilling to sit back and let the same thing happen again.Fortunately Dark Matters is on the same side as him.Unfortunately they're Dark Matters, and they've done a lot of shady shit.Specifically they've done some of it to Peter Nureyev.
Relationships: Cecil Kanagawa & Juno Steel, Juno Steel & Sasha Wire, Peter Nureyev & Sasha Wire, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 153
Kudos: 161





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU, set some time after the end of in Juno Steel and the Soul of the People. Juno and Rita are still in Hyperion, but Juno’s probably thinking about leaving.
> 
> It is also a sequel to another Penumbra fic of mine, but if you read that first you'll spoil yourself for an early reveal here. If you want to read it anyway go ahead- link in my bio. I'll link to that fic in the notes after the reveal has happened.

In this job you learn to expect certain things. Corruption, self-interest, long nights, bad coffee. Being followed is another old favourite. At this point I’m an expert at knowing when there’s someone tailing me. On a good day I can even work out who they are before I see them.

It helps if they happen to be an ex childhood best friend. 

“Sasha.” I’d stepped into a doorway to let her and her friend catch up, then come out behind them once they’d passed. Maybe I liked the way that made their faces jump. I’m a simple lady and there’s something in the pleasure of catching Dark Matters agents out. “You two got a reason for stalking me or is this just for fun?”

She straightened her expression fast and there she was; Sasha Wire, dark and angry eyed as ever. “Juno.”

Her friend- though knowing her that would be stretching it- cleared his throat. Hollow cheeks, bad suit, expression that said he operated at constant low-level annoyance and no sense of humour. Standard Dark Matters. “Detective Steel. Your reputation proceeds you.”

“What Agent K is trying to say,” Sasha must have seen my expression and known I was thinking of making a soon to be regretted reply, “is that we’d like to talk to you. In your office. If you still have an office.”

“It’s not burned down yet.” There was no love lost between me and Sasha, but a certain level of snark is allowed from old friends. I didn’t have the energy to be angry with her anyway. “But I haven’t been Miss Congeniality since I was twenty-two. Is there a reason I should let you in?”

“Two reasons. Money.” She sneered at me, “Which is always good enough for you.”

“Touché. What’s the second?”

“It concerns the… THEIA Soul incident.”

Which was all I really needed to hear. I spun on my heel and started marching away. Sasha stopped me with three words. “Juno. It’s back.”

And damn it. You don’t risk your life to bring down a super powerful population controlling, life stealing monster of an AI just to let it happen again.

\---

Luckily Rita was at lunch. I didn’t want to drag her any into any more of this THEIA stuff unless I had to- and as the only person who’d hacked into Dark Matters’ database without getting caught, keeping her away from them was a good idea too.

My office is too small. I choose to see that as a bonus. With me in the chair behind the desk there wasn’t enough room for Sasha and Agent K left. They stood opposite me, neither of them wanting to take the single chair I kept for customers and both looking uncomfortable with their proximity to each other.

Good. There's a pleasure in making Dark Matters agents uncomfortable too. “I’m going to regret asking this, but how do you even know I was involved with went down at THEIA?”

“We still have a little surveillance footage- a lot of it got lost in the short out, but enough for us to work with survived.” Sasha sighed. “You get two more questions- and you only get them-“

“Because you owe me? If you know about what happened then you know that I’m pretty much the hometown hero of Hyperion.” It was an attempt to prod her into giving me the specifics of what she knew. Sasha narrowed her eyes instead, expression like she’d swallowed a hot sauce lemon. 

“Because we need your help.”

I put my hands behind my head and sat back a little. “You could try to sound nice about it.”

“We don’t have time. Ask what you want to know.”

“How long have you known it was me who broke the Souls?”

“Since you confirmed it five seconds ago.”

Damn. Her smirk was downright nasty. “Fine. I wave my last question. What’s happened?”

“Simple answer; there was a prototype. It’s still out there.”

 _Damn._ “You got any details to go with that?”

“I’ll take it from here.” Agent K stepped forward. “We knew about the prototype from an early demonstration of the Soul last year. Before all of the unpleasantness.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Mm.” He cleared his throat again. “Following what happened it seemed wise for Dark Matters to prevent any remaining THEIA technology from falling into the wrong hands.”

“Meaning any hands which aren’t yours?”

“Juno, we’d get through this faster if you’d be quiet.”

“Fine, fine.” I wished I could kick them out, but if this were true and a Soul was out there it was worth playing nice for ten minutes.

“Thank you, Agent W.” K shot a far-from grateful look at her before he turned back to me. “Knowing that the Soul was likely in the THEIA vault, and knowing that THIEA were unlikely to grant us access, we decided to take a, mm, more subtle course of action.”

“You surely don’t mean,” I pulled my best obnoxiously offended face, “something _illegal?_ Dark Matters would never!”

“Juno.”

“Come on Sasha. It’s funny.”

“Maybe to you.” K’s voice had a dangerous tremble to it. “This is a serious issue! You of all people should know that.”

“Sue me. I believe in the power of laughter to bring enemies together etcetera.” I sat forward and leaned onto my desk. “So you want me to break in and steal the thing?”

“Hardly. We have professionals for that.” Scoffing, K crossed his arms. “We sent in an agent two days ago.”

Oh.

“Let me guess. They haven’t checked in. And suddenly you’re wondering if you got screwed over by one of your own.”

K’s silence and Sasha’s stormy expression were all the answers I needed. They had a Dark Matters agent gone bad- or gone worse. And either way they’d gone there with a piece of terrifying technology.

“So why have you come to me? I’d think you could track them down.”

“We need someone who knows Hyperion.” Sasha made an irritated noise. “And someone who knows the Soul. You tick both boxes.”

“Lucky me.”

“Juno.”

“I’m going to do it.” Damn it all, I really was. “And I’m not even going to tell you how much you owe me till the end. Just- next time you decide to do something involving THEIA, maybe come to me before you put all of Hyperion in the firing line?”

I stood, pulling back on my coat.

“You’re sure your agent left the THEIA building?”

“We caught him on security cameras. He left. Then he turned the corner, hit a blind spot and vanished.”

“And standard Dark Matters protocol is to delete any public recordings of agents at work, so that footage is gone.” K at least had the sense to look vaguely embarrassed at shooting his own investigation in the foot.

“All right. Your agent. I want to see where he lives.”

K went for another throat clearing, but the audacity of me wanting to do my job was just too much: he ended up coughing. Violently. I exchanged a look with Sasha and she rolled her eyes, patted the man on the back. He straightened up with a red face and tissue clamped to his nose. “Helium allergy. It’s the time of year. And you can’t. Dark Matters agents operate under the radar, if we went around just-“

“You know I’m right.” I turned to Sasha. “If they took it then they took it to sell. Any evidence of that is going to be in their apartment.”

She met my eye and nodded once. “Fine.”

“It really isn’t.” K glared between us, “You-“

And the coughing returned. I sighed, gestured to the side room. “There’s a tap through there. You can use it to get water. Often almost translucent.”

He glowered, but left in the direction I’d pointed. I waited till I heard the tap running.

“Remember that third question I waved? I’m changing my mind. You know that I was involved in what happened with the Souls. What about-?”

“Your secretary’s safe.” Sasha’s voice was low. I’d been right to wait for K to leave, apparently she didn’t want him in on this conversation either. “Involving good people in what we do isn’t fair. As far as the rest of Dark Matters goes you acted alone. I’m the only one who knows there’s no way you could take down THEIA without someone else to do the brain work.”

I inclined my head slightly. “Thanks.”

“Didn’t do it for you.” A muscle tightened in her jaw. Indecision flashed over her face. “Listen, this case. Our agent-“

But whatever she’d been about to say was cut off by K coming back into the room. “Let’s get going. No time like the present to break our security protocols.”

“I’ll be a second. Got to make a couple of inquiry calls.” I shot a look at K. “Not to the sort of people who’ll talk if they know Dark Matters is involved.”

Sasha saved me again, hurrying him out the door along with her, only pausing to give me a warning look back over her shoulder. _Be smart,_ that look said. Which was entirely unfair. My bad decisions were down to an all-time low of 60%.

First call was to Rita. She picked up as fast as ever and spoke around mouthfuls of whatever she’d been in the middle of eating. “Mista Steel? What’s wrong? You never call me at lunch! You say it’s supposed to be time for me to not be working and that you respect boundaries now and-“

“Listen.” I kept my voice quiet, only half trusting Sasha not to have an ear pressed against the door. “The code you used on the SOULS. Can you send me a copy?”

“What? But Mista Steel, if you need the code that means-“

“Yeah. I know.” I could hear her vibrating with fear at the other end of the line, I pressed my hand against my face, “Please, Rita. Don’t panic. Just send me the code. And then- I don’t know. Can you get out of the city? If this all goes wrong you’re the only one who can stop it. There’s someone I met when I was away- Buddy Aurinko. Last I heard she was in the Cerebrus Province. She’s not good but she’s not evil and she’ll help you do whatever you need to do.”

A long pause before she replied. “… Yeah, Mista Steel. I can do that. But I could stay and help you too.”

Damn. Why was I so damn _selfish?_ “… I can’t have you here with me. Dark Matters’ involved. But- but if you could stay in Hyperion for one day- just _one_ day. By then it’ll either be solved or you’ll know you need to run.”

“If that’s what you need.” She swallowed. I could almost hear her determined little nod. “Yes, Mista Steel. I’ll do it.”

“I know you will. Rita… Thanks.”

I hung up before things could get emotionally weird. Asking Rita to involve herself in THEIA again- 

I knew I could rely on her. I knew that I didn't have to be alone for this, that she made me better. But this was different from before. Dark Matters- the whole organisation- would be watching. By now Rita had to be high up their enemy list. Bringing her in would thrust her into the spotlight, she was better off helping from a distance. Safer for her. Safer for everyone else too. 

Second call was less dramatic. I got voice mail.

“Cecil Kanagawa is unavailable! How sad for you! Leave your message!”

Honestly it was easier than talking to him.

“Hey, Cecil. It’s Juno. Listen- I was wondering if you’d heard anything about some sort of… fancy tech for sale? Private, not-strictly-legal style? I’d really appreciate any info you could throw my way. Thanks.”

If I had more time I’d have sent out other feelers, but Cecil Kanagawa would do in a hurry. Anyone as rich as him was always offered a seat at the table of illicit auctions.

With my messages sent I took a last look round the office, straightened my battered coat, and hurried headfirst down the stairs and into whatever disaster was waiting.


	2. Chapter 2

We weren’t in Uptown Hyperion, but Sasha and K’s car stopped almost close enough to smell the semi-fresh air.

“Nice place.” I eyed the tower block ahead. “Does everyone on the Dark Matters payroll get paid this well?”

“Agent N was placed where he was most useful.” K climbed out behind me, adjusting his coat against the chill.

“Right. And that was here because…?”

“Because we like to have an ear next to everyone of import.”

“I take it there’s nobody in my building?”

“Juno. Stop it.” But I caught Sasha’s mouth twitching as she pushed her smile down. At least someone appreciated me.

The apartment they took me to was on the 66th floor, about halfway up the building and too high to climb from unless you had an anti-gravity rig- and hell, if Agent N could afford one of those he wouldn’t have bothered stealing the Soul. There went any solutions involving _that_ unlikely twist. 

Still, it was a nice building. Carpet. Windows. Air filtration kept out most of the city smells. I almost envied the guy, till we got inside his apartment itself. 

“Well… this is sad. And you’ve seen my office. I have a high standard for ‘sad’.”

The walls were bare and grey, the floor plastic panels. No pictures. No anything. I’d been glib in saying the place felt sad, but the truth was that it did. Sort of hollow. Like nobody had lived there for a lot longer than a couple of days.

I wandered through the rooms with Sasha and K following, the latter coughing again. Found a bedroom (bed made, every closet closed, storage safe under the cabinet), a kitchen (takeout menus piled neatly on a counter and the fridge empty), bathroom (toothpaste, toothbrush, shampoo). Box of pills. I picked them up.

“'Sleep Hards'.” Sasha said from over my shoulder. “A lot of Dark Matters agents take them. Chronic insomnia is a common complaint when you do what we do. Go figure.”

“Maybe I should get a prescription.” Did Sasha have a place like this too? Was this really the standard life for Dark Matters employees? Damn, I really didn’t want to start feeling sorry for the spooksuits- not even ones I knew. 

And anyway, this wasn’t the time for getting sad over my failure as a friend. I clicked my teeth, gestured vaguely with the pill box. “Has either of you worked with Agent N?”

K had sidled in behind me. “I’m his handler.”

“What’s he like?”

“Fairly new recruit. Nice enough.”

“Thanks for the insight.”

“I met him.” Sasha said from the hall. “We had a job together. Like K said, he was nice. Sharp under it. Sarcastic. Good looking, in a pointy way.”

That was a thought- even if I had a good idea what the answer would be. “Any chance Dark Matters keeps pictures?”

“None. Security. You know. We use DNA ID tags, they’re more secure anyway. Anyone could buy a face.”

Of course not.

I put N’s box back where I’d found it and headed for the bedroom.

K cleared his throat. “You want to look in the safe? We’ll need a cracker-“

“I don’t want to look in the safe. Maybe if we had time I would, but as it is… well, it’s right there in the open. Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like even Dark Matters probably trains its agents better than that.” I opened the closet instead. Started rifling. “All right. This is interesting.”

Sasha rolled her eyes hard enough for me to hear them. “I’m not going to ask what you’ve spotted with your clever detective eye. Just tell me.”

“Since you’re being so nice about it.” I moved back and let her in. “You Dark Matters people go for nondescript. Which is fine. Identical badly fitting suits are fetch or whatever.”

“What’s your point?”

“Agent N had his tailored.” I pulled a sleeve out to show her. “This is hand stitching. And see, the whole shape is much more… person-y than yours.”

“You do fashion now, Juno?”

I hesitated. No way was Sasha getting the truth on that one. If I told her who I’d picked up the finer points of tailoring from-

The image of a sharp smile and flashing eyes behind glasses. I shoved the memory away.

“I know how to read people. Clothes are a big part of that.”

She didn’t look convinced, but shrugged and dropped the sleeve. “Fine. So he likes clothes. Not exactly a clue.”

“Maybe not, or maybe…” I started searching again. The key here was to look for what didn’t fit in. There was always something. “Yeah. This.”

The coat was long and heavy. Made of something like thick wool, but too cheap to be realistic. High collared.

“That’s a damn ugly coat.”

“A lot uglier than anything else your agent owns.” I tossed it onto the bed, gave it a once over. Examined the bottom for any traces of mud or grime, and I couldn’t see anything but-

“Are you… smelling that coat, Juno?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Agent W, you’ve apparently recruited a mad man.” K sneered from the doorway. I elected to ignore him. 

“Smells of sulphur. With just a _hint_ of ozone. It’s hard to dry clean out that sort of thing.” I straightened and found both of them glaring at me- Sasha with a little more sarcasm than spite. “Nuclear Fission. Your agent has been near Hyperion’s power core, and he went in disguise.”

“… All right.” Sasha nodded slowly. “So you sort of found a clue. Well done. What now?”

“We head down there. There’s a worker’s bar. Likely if there’s anything to find, we’ll find it there.”

“Mm. Or we could do the sensible thing and go to the head office. Dark Matters is on terms with Raj MacMarn- CEO of Hyperion’s Nuclear Fission.”

“Great idea. We’ll split up.” I gave them pair of them a thumbs up. “You guys go talk to the important people and I’ll waste my time in the bar.”

“Yeah, no. I’ll go with you. K can take MacMarn.”

“Still 50% less Dark Matters agents. I’m good with that.” When I turned away K made a face, and again, I ignored it. Maturity for the win.

Leaving the place was a relief. Felt like a burden being lifted off my shoulders. I shuddered and reminded myself to be grateful for my miserable, messy little office. There were worse things than sentient mould.

\--

All of Hyperion is powered by the Fission Core. Fission is one of those things which absolutely shouldn’t be safe, but apparently is. All I know for certain is going too close to the thing leaves me with the feeling that my teeth are shaking.

“This the place?” Sasha was looking uncomfortable, which was nice. It gave us something in common.

The bar didn’t have a name: just a neon arrow pointing to the door. This sort of time at night you’d expect a certain level of raucous celebration, but nope. Silence. Fission Core workers are miserable drinkers.

“They’re largely owned by the company. You know, Sold Staff.” Not slavery because slavery was illegal and they couldn’t have anything _illegal_ in corporate Hyperion. But if someone was down on their luck then surely it was within their rights to sell a few years of their life to whatever multiplanetary corp was willing to pay. “Guess they don’t feel like having fun.”

Sasha grunted in response. “Who does?”

“Nice nihilism. You’ll need to give me tips.” 

We headed in, hit the foul-smelling air. Sasha beelined for the bar and I slunk after her.

“So.” The stools were uncomfortably low, I leaned over conspiratorially. “Before. In my office. You were about to tell me something about your agent.”

“Yeah.” She sighed and ordered us both whatever was on tap. Sasha should have known better. The sludge came in metal tankards and neither of us drank a sip. “So. Official theory with this is that Agent N took the Soul and ran. Official orders are to bring him in however is necessary. K’s his point of contact, and getting this thing tied up as fast as possible is in his best interest. But...”

Ah. “You think maybe things aren’t what they seem?”

“The Souls took over all of Old Town. This prototype- we don’t know what it does.” She tapped the edge of her glass. “If he got exposed to it then there’s a chance he’s not acting independently.”

“Except.” I inclined my head slightly. “We know he came here before he took the Soul. So…”

“Maybe he didn’t come here to sell out Dark Matters. Maybe he just liked the ambience. And the other thing-,” but she broke off and sighed. 

And then for a second, she hesitated. Nobody who didn’t know her would have noticed. Unfortunately for Sasha, I did. “Dark Matters isn’t an especially caring employer. I guess I feel like if I get him a decent chance, maybe someone will give me one too.”

“Didn’t think you believed in karma.”

“I don’t. Just getting sentimental, I guess.” She blinked and straightened up. “Anyway. We aren’t here to chat. What’s your plan, Steel?”

I snorted, fixed on my nastiest grin, reached across the bar and tapped the server on the arm. “Hey. Excuse me. Me and my friend were wondering if you’d seen anyone around here looking sort of suspicious? Maybe in a suit? Maybe working for Dark Matters?”

The server’s face went from annoyed to surprised to shocked to angry. They didn’t answer me, instead shaking their arm free and turning purposefully in the opposite direction.

“Damn it, Juno. What _was_ that?” Sasha looked like she’d like to gut me, leaning forward with her eyes blazing and her voice lowered. I shrugged.

“Had to ask sometime. Better than doing nothing.”

“All you’ve done is stick a sign on top of us saying ‘avoid at all costs’.”

“Sasha, we came in here as strangers. You’re in a _suit_ and I’m in… well, neither of us looks like we work at the Core _._ Nobody was going to talk to us anyway.” I picked up my tankard, forgetting for a moment that the contents were bubbling, and put it down without drinking a drop. 

“So maybe I should have tried questioning them myself instead of letting you ruin our chances.” 

“Thanks for the opportunity.” I lowered my voice. “But I haven’t ruined our chances. The server’s involved in what’s going on here- nothing happens in this bar without them knowing. And now they know that we know...”

“They’ll make an excuse and run.” Sasha nodded grimly, “Fine.”

I grinned at her and swung my legs away from the bar. “Gonna wait out front in case they get past you. You keep watching.”

“Fine. Fine.” Sasha nodded again. Then for a moment her face cracked and a sliver of humanity showed. “And- thanks, Juno. For helping me on this.”

Damn it. “No problem.” And I swaggered to the door, outrunning my conscience and knowing I had to move quickly if I didn’t want Sasha to realise I’d been lying. 

I had no idea if the server was in on anything, though given how solidly they’d been ignoring their customers, I really doubted it. All I did know was that saying in a loud voice that I was looking for a Dark Matters agent might set _somebody_ off. And that now, that somebody might come after me. 

So yeah. I’d lied. The thing was that Sasha had lied to me first. There was something else going on here, something she wasn’t telling me about this Agent N and about the whole damn case. Only solution was to break off and go it alone. Even if that meant setting a trap for myself. 

I’d only made it a few steps out of the bar when that part of my plan started working. Sometimes a lady just gets lucky. 

A heavy hand smacked the back of my head, knocked me stumbling a few steps forward. Before I could catch myself I was grabbed by the lapels of my coat, pulled forward and cracked backwards, hard, into a wall.

The face glaring down at me wasn’t happy. Broad and lined with years of work, she scowled and shoved a muscled forearm into my throat. “Heard you were asking after a Dark Matters agent. You’re not one of them- you smell too bad. So what, you’re just helping them out?”

“‘Heard’ as in you were sitting behind me in the bar when I said it?”

She didn’t like that. I got a kick in the stomach for it. 

“What do you _know?_ ”

“Only-,” I gasped and choked and started again with a grimace, “Only that he’s gone missing and that you’re acting awfully suspicious. Oh. And that my friend back in the bar _is_ Dark Matters, and she’s going to be real annoyed if she comes out here and sees me getting roughed up. She’s protective.”

Sasha would punch me for that one. Hell, I’d deserve it. But it got the job done. 

Muscles cursed and looked over her shoulder. I could see the mental gymnastics she was doing; she needed to know what I knew and she needed to find it out somewhere where Sasha wouldn’t catch her in the act. Time to go to a secondary location. 

And maybe- and this was a big maybe- she knew somewhere secure nearby. Maybe even where Agent N was stashed. Hiding out, kidnapped or dead; I was hoping for one of the first two but half expecting the latter, which sucked. It’d be easier to get answers out of him if he was breathing. 

“Dammit.” Muscles spat. She’d made a choice. I didn’t have time to ask what it was before something blue flashed across the bottom of my vision- I recognised it as a stun baton for about half a second. 

Then it hit. A blast of pain, and I was gone. 

\--

“-Yeah, but he was asking questions, and MacMarn’s gone and I don’t know what to do!” 

Hands tied behind my back. Dim lights. Smell of sulfur and unwashed bodies. I cracked an eye and found myself in some sort of storage room; mainly bare. A table right ahead of me with a coat thrown messily over it, a set of keys and the stun baton half hidden under the sleeve. One wall lined with those big metal containment units they use to bring in off-planet supplies. And a figure, pacing back and forth and talking into a phone. Muscles herself. 

“There was an agent with him too. Listen, this is too big. We should just let them go and hope Dark Matter’s listen. I can’t-”

Her voice broke off. 

“I know. I know they’ll blame us, but if we give him back alive then at least we can tell them it was on MacMarn’s orders and at least there’s a chance they’ll go easy.”

Whoever she was talking to didn’t agree. I could see it in the way her shoulders slumped. And based on how the conversation was going, that meant I needed an exit. 

Luckily, I’ve taken to wearing fingernail pics; little blades that fit between the nail and the finger itself. The danger is you’ll slice your thumb off, but a friend showed me how to use them relatively safely. Relatively. I still ended up with a slice down my palm before the ropes fell away and I could stagger to my feet.

Muscles was still talking. “... Fine. I’ll do it. We can throw the bodies into the core. But we’ll need to run. This might buy us a couple of hours, but with the kids-”

That was the last thing she said before I brought up the baton and sent her down. Did I feel bad about shocking out someone with kids to take care of? Sure. But as she’d been planning on killing me I decided I could get over it. She’d be fine. 

Plus she’d shocked me first. 

I straightened up and took a better look round. Only one option for the location of Agent N. Grabbing Muscles’ keys, I started on the containment units. Taller than me and about the length of a car, perfect for turning into an impromptu prison cell. 

First few turned up nothing, next one had a few scattered pieces of scrap metal. The one after that- 

They’d clearly used up all the good locks on him, which is why I’d only got rope. Agent N was wrapped in thin chains and fastened by his arms to the unit’s ceiling. Being as tall as he was he could almost stand anyway- but it was a near thing, his toes scraping the ground. 

When I say I didn’t recognise him at first it wasn’t because of the chains, or the dark in the containment unit, or the fact that he had different glasses and that his hair was so short. It was his expression. Annoyed, sure, and angry too. I knew both of them well enough. 

But under them there was this gap. Unfamiliarity. Worse, suspicion. Distrust. 

I knew what he’d say before he said it. 

Peter Nureyev stared at me. His eyes were narrowed and his glasses were askew. He spoke in a hiss.

“ _Who the hell are you supposed to be?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I meant when I said 'early reveal'. You can just read this fic and you will eventually find out what is up with Peter, but if you want that inside scoop https://archiveofourown.org/works/25116568


	3. Chapter 3

My first thought was absurdly stupid- that this was his petty way at getting back at me for walking out on him. Maybe he was just undercover again, Agent N rather than Rex Glass, and stabbing me in the heart just like I’d stabbed him. 

But he couldn’t have faked that expression. So what then? Sasha has been right about the Soul getting to him, that it was messing with his head? That had to be it. I remembered my Soul- it had been able to switch my memories on and off, so-

“I asked you a question.” Nureyev twisted his face, “You’re new, aren’t you? Oh- they’ve brought in a hired gun to kill me! None of them want Dark Matters blood on their hands- you  _ do  _ know that I’m Dark Matters, right?”

Okay. That was different. Had his Soul convinced him that his cover was real? I couldn't see why- but then I wasn't a nightmarish hive mind. I needed more information.

Only one way to get that. Time to talk to him. 

Had to.

Definitely better than just standing here and staring at him. 

I needed words. Needed to be practical. But my throat had gone dry. 

Hell. 

Just the sight of him and I was gone. 

“I’m not- I’m not here to kill you! “ I managed, finally, and it wasn’t  _ enough,  _ I shoved the stun baton through my belt and stepped forward _.  _ “I’m here to help, I’m going to get you out of here. I- I need you to try to focus. It’s me, it’s Juno. Juno Steel.” Not that that would work against a Soul. I should know that. I really should. “Nureyev-  _ please-” _

“It’s  _ Agent Nureyev.  _ And I am  _ very  _ focused already.”

Point in the ‘thinks his cover is real’ box. 

His teeth were clenched- of course they were. His arms must be in agony. I desperately wanted to let him down. But if he had a Soul, the second he was free he’d attack me. “Calm down and-“

“Oh, I’m calm. Can’t you tell?” He tried to gesture at himself and winced as the effort twisted him further, “This is basically yoga.”

So his Soul was snarkier than mine had been. Fine. I raised my hands placatingly. “I don’t know if you can really understand me, but you’re under the control of a THEIA Soul. It’s going to make you attack me. But-“

“I am  _ not-” _

He lost his balance and half fell, toes of his shoes scrabbling for a moment and arms yanked backwards- and even though he tried to stop himself, I heard him gasp in pain. 

Damn it. 

“Nureyev, here, let me-,” I approached, holding up the keys. He saw, and for a moment his eyes widened behind his dangling glasses, he didn’t trust me. 

I deserved that.

“Fine,” he said finally, “just be quick.” 

“Yeah, yeah...” I held back a wince when I saw his wrists: they were rubbed raw with struggling, his long fingers clenched into his palms in pain. I tried not to touch him as I found the keys, unclicked the lock. 

It didn’t feel right that I should get to _.  _ Not after what I’d done. 

“ _ Gh-, _ ” he bit back a pained gasp when his hands dropped. The pain stung at my chest. How long had they kept him here? 

No, no, be practical. “Let me just get the chain-,” and he was free to fall onto his knees. 

To sit there, shaking. 

That sight was all I needed to completely forget the danger of the Soul. I crouched beside him, wanting to check him for injuries but again kept back by the knowledge that I didn’t have the right to hold him, to help him. 

“There’s a chair. You should- you should sit down.”

Nureyev’s voice was curt. “I’m fine.” And he shifted back, tried to clamber awkwardly to his feet. Stumbled half way- and I couldn’t help it. I caught him by the arm, and he turned and met my eye and-

There was a look I’d come to recognise in those dark days when it had just been me and Rita against the Souls. A sort of checked-out-ness. Like your body wasn’t really your own, like you knew everything would be okay so you didn’t have to worry. Mick had had it. All those people, they’d had it. 

Nureyev was an inch away from me. Close enough for me to see the fragments of lighter brown glint in the dark of his eyes.

He didn’t have it. 

I stepped back, the Wrongness of the situation bubbling under my mind like a steam geyser about to blow. “You don’t have a Soul.”

“I  _ told you. _ ” Nureyev, holding himself up with a hand against the metal wall and shot a glare back. Pulled down his already loose tie and opened the neck of his shirt. It was a brisk, harsh movement, all utility. So different from the night when I’d done it for him-

There was no Soul attached to him. 

“Convinced?” Nureyev shoved his glasses back up on his nose and stalked past me and into the rest of the room. I found myself turning, slowly, watching him. 

It was him. It had to be him. I knew his face, his spidery body. But his expressions were harder. His hair was so short it was almost cropped. His glasses were clunky, rectangular, and I realised that before they’d been elegant. Had I noticed at the time? He was paler now too, no- though he’d always been pale now it looked sickly. Shadows under his eyes. 

He turned suddenly back and found me watching. I couldn’t look away. 

“Juno Steel. I do know you- from our files. You’re the detective involved in the THEIA event.”

I opened my mouth to say- I don’t know what I would say, how I would start. 

He didn’t remember me. He really didn’t remember me. 

“And now you’ve finally shut up. Great timing. Let me guess then- my co-workers contacted you when I went missing because of your previous knowledge of the Souls.” He smiled, and it was flat and empty and  _ wrong,  _ “How am I doing so-?”

I couldn’t take it. 

“Nureyev- Peter- it’s  _ me.  _ We- you- you’ve got to remember-,” before I could stop myself I had my hands on his arms, I was staring into his eyes again, desperate for any sort of recognition. 

And instead, from the moment I touched him he turned stiff as a corpse. His face twisted into something hateful and angry. 

I didn’t stop him as he broke free, stepped backwards and away from me. 

“Detective Steel. I think you’re confused. Given that you’ve saved my life I’m willing to overlook it- on the understanding that we can move forward.  _ Quickly _ . I need to contact Dark Matters as soon as possible. If you know about the Soul, then you know that I should have it. I don’t. Whoever was responsible for my kidnapping took it and-”

He kept talking. I couldn’t hear him. 

Something had happened to Peter Nureyev in the time since I’d last seen him, something horrible. And now he didn’t know who I was, didn’t know who he was. Thought he was- whatever  _ this  _ was. 

And I remembered Sasha. Of how she’d lied to me about ‘Agent N’. 

She’d known. 

“Detective Steel!” The shout brought me back, I found Nureyev glaring at me and pointing at something. Muscles, still unconscious on the floor. Phone beside her. 

It was ringing. As we watched, it went to answerphone. 

“ _ Listen, whoever’s there, if you’ve hurt Jas I swear- _ ”

“You knocked her out when she was distracted on her phone?” 

Nureyev, Agent N, whoever he was, was talking to me. I struggled to find a reply- looking at him brought this strange mixed feeling, somewhere between revulsion and attraction, and that made sense because he was somewhere between a stranger and the man I- the man I had abandoned. I tried to find a way to put all of that into a sentence, and finally mumbled;

“... yeah.” 

I’d never been much of an orator. 

“And you didn’t think about whoever was on the other end?” He shoved his glasses back again, “Of course not. Perhaps we should get out of here?”

Get out of here. Yeah. Get out of here, get Nureyev somewhere safe to figure out- to figure  _ something  _ out. Call Sasha, shout at her down the phone till she told me what the hell-

“Detective Steel?” 

All right, all right. Whatever this was, Nureyev needed to be alive for me to fix it. I pushed everything else out of my head. “Do you know the way out?”

“I was unconscious when they brought me in _.  _ I’d assume that since you’re the rescuer you came with an exit route.”

“Yeah, well, I was unconscious too.” I muttered, scanning the room and spotting a likely door. “Come on-”

“Wait- did you get in here by deliberately getting yourself knocked out and kidnapped?”

“To get in here, yes. To rescue you. So if we can save the critique till later I’d appreciate it.”

He answered with an irritated noise in his throat. 

The door opened onto a narrow corridor, pipes running down one side. We dashed down, emerged at the end and I had just enough time to take in that we were in a cement stairwell before a shout rang out from above, “I can see them- he’s got the agent-!”

“Down!” Nureyev grabbed my arm as he passed, pulling me along. The feeling of his fingers was uncomfortably familiar. 

I didn’t have time to get poetic about it because a bullet cracked into the wall where my head had been. Close enough to send me tumbling. 

“Detective?!” Nureyev had me by the shoulder, “Did it get you?”

“No- no. Fine.” Concern in his eyes, for just a second. Then he was dragging me up and onward. 

“Then  _ hurry. _ ”

The problem with going down was that eventually you find the bottom. For us that was a metal access panel. Access to what?

“Sewers.” 

“I wasn’t going to keep this suit anyway.” Nureyev muttered, clambering down. I followed him and landed in knee high, well let’s be nice and call it ‘water’. 

“Come on. This way.”

“How can you tell?”

“I have… sewer expertise.”

“Useful skill set.”

“You’d be surprised.” 

Damn, no. This was too- too  _ weird.  _ Bantering with Nureyev like he knew who I was? Like he knew who  _ he  _ was? Short answers only. Keep it impersonal till I could fix this horrorshow situation. 

“Who sent you?” Nureyev asked as we turned the next shadowy corner. “Agent K?”

“Yeah.” I hesitated. It felt weird to be probing him for information without him knowing. This was  _ Nureyev.  _ But if I could find something to help him…

“Sasha Wire too. Agent W.” I tried to keep the anger out of my voice. I didn’t do a great job. 

“Agent W? She wasn’t on this case.”

“She’s a- I know her.”

“No love lost between you.”

“Not anymore.” I hesitated again. “You two friends?”

Nureyev laughed, brisk and joyless. “Dark Matters doesn’t encourage friendships. She’s a good person.”

Sure she fucking was. 

I should have pried further. I couldn’t bear to. 

We reached an exit point I knew; it would take us up onto a street just shady enough for nobody to care and not so shady that we’d be immediately sold out. 

I helped Nureyev out, closed the heavy trapdoor behind him. He stretched his long back, took a deep breath of the stale Old Town air. 

I was staring again. Had to get a handle on that. 

“We should go.” I said, and then repeated myself when the words didn’t sound loud enough. “Get somewhere to hide out. They might still be looking for you.”

“Hmm? Oh.” Nureyev looked at me. “No need. I’ll contact Dark Matters, they’ll pick me up.”

My blood froze hard. If he went back to them, if they got him back then any chance I had of saving him was gone. 

“You can’t.”

“I’m afraid I have to. Not that following you through a sewer hasn’t been a wonderful evening, but with the Soul missing-”

Grasping for straws, I remembered what Sasha had said. 

“If you go back without the Soul they’ll blame you for taking it- they already basically think you’ve stolen it. It’s a death sentence.”

Nureyev narrowed his eyes at me. “Finding the Soul is more important than what happens to me. If I pass on what I know to Dark Matters, they have a better chance of doing that.”

Damn. He was serious. 

And suddenly I was fucking furious. It was one thing to be self sacrificing because you chose to be, because you believed in something. But Dark Matters had taken him and they done whatever they’d done and they’d  _ forced  _ him to become this. To put his fucking neck on their chopping block. 

“Nureyev-,” I half choked, instinctively knowing that he shouldn’t like me using his name out in the open, “They’ll kill you.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me. 

Instead, he was reaching into his pocket, he was taking out a phone- wait. 

“That’s my phone!” 

“I slipped it out of your pocket when you fell on the stairs. Had a feeling you might not like me making this call.” 

His voice was so  _ calm.  _ How could he be so calm after all of this, after stealing my phone to call for them to come and kill him-

He’d stolen my phone. 

Goddamn, he was still in there. 

It wasn’t that seeing that made a difference. I couldn’t have let him go anyway. I guess it gave me hope, and hope gave me the push to do what I did next. 

Normally I’m a big fan of bodily autonomy. But here was the man I- dammit, I could say it- the man I loved about to make a call that would end with him dead. 

Or trapped like someone he wasn’t. He’d hate that a lot more than dying. 

It wasn’t his choice to make because he couldn’t make his own choice. 

“Nureyev?”

“Detective Steel?”

“Sorry.”

I jammed the stun baton between his shoulder blades and let it send a jolt through him. Caught him as he slumped backwards, dropping my phone with Sasha’s number still half dialed on the screen. 

All right. Time for a plan. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unique date ideas; rescue your bf, have him insult your rescue technique, explore a sewer and knock him out but like in a nice way


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realised in the middle of writing this chapter that they use comms instead of phones, but I refuse to change that. So now this is set in a universe where everything is exactly the same but there's like a HUGE retro tech craze going on.

Old Town Hyperion wasn’t what it had been. Almost literally, given Ramses’ attempted name change. But you can tear somewhere down and build it back up all you want, eventually it reverts to form. 

That had already started. A few streets- like the one I’d exited to with Nurueyev- were shambling back into decay.

I’d carried Nureyev a couple of blocks, ducking into doorways and behind dumpsters whenever a shadow passed. After some awkward manhandling I’d settled for a mesh of bridal style and over the shoulder for Nureyev transportation, and even here lugging around an unconscious man might get you noticed. Thankfully our destination wasn’t much further. 

I tried to ignore his face- it looked so similar to the way it had That Night. Closed eyes, lines smoothed by sleep, points of his canines showing over his parted lips. Gentle, softer than someone so sharp had any right to be. 

The main difference was the smell. No cologne. Just sweat, cheap soap, and the sulfur-helium mix which had stuck to us both since the core. Made him seem vulnerable. 

God, I needed to stop. It was bad enough to knock my- whatever-he-was out, watching him sleep and smelling him-

Creepy. Downright creepy. 

I took him to one of the half-built apartment blocks. There weren’t many of them-given how fast Ramses had worked the construction was largely completed by the time he died. This one was abandoned now, the cement skeleton was already turning into a hang out for local teenagers. Nobody around tonight, which would have felt like too much luck if it wasn’t that so far I’d had none at all. 

Next part of the plan didn’t make me feel great about myself. I used one of the worker ladders to clamber us down into the pit at the bottom of an empty elevator shaft, put Nureyev onto the cold cement as gently as I could. It wasn’t a prison cell. It wasn’t secure enough to hold someone as resourceful as him for any real length of time. But given that the alternative would be tying him up- 

I looked at his wrists again; they’d actually been bleeding in places. No way I was putting cuffs on him. 

He was so- so _fragile,_ lying there. Short hair making his ears awkward. Lacking the armour of silk or velvet or gold lacing or whatever else. Too thin. But it was more than that: Nureyev had this indestructibility, and even though I knew it was fake, even though I’d seen through it for a couple of moments- it had been that. Moments. Even when he’d been snoring he’d been annoyingly suave. Now-

Hell. Staring again. 

Before I climbed out I emptied my coat pockets and left the coat itself for him. It was cold down there, and even if the fabric was thin as dry skin, it was something. As much as I could manage. 

Back on top, I lifted the ladder out and started clicking through my phone- Rita had made it untraceable, so thankfully Dark Matters couldn’t find me while I looked for answers. 

First, a lot of missed calls and messages from Sasha. I glared at her number and moved to call her back, I was already working out how I’d start my rant-

I stopped. This was a time for thinking first. Sasha had known about Nureyev, but more than that, she’d known about _me_ and Nureyev, at least enough about us to tell that I wouldn’t be happy. 

How deep into this was she?

Stupid question. She was buried in it. And being so deep meant that there was nothing I could say to get her to change her allegiance. Any call I made to her would only be an outlet to me, a chance for me to yell, it wouldn’t be helpful to Nureyev. 

All right. Who else? I scanned through my missed calls. 

A message from an unfamiliar number, one with a Halcyon Park area code. Always interesting. 

“Juno! This is Cecil, not that you’d recognise my voice given how _scarce_ you’ve made yourself! And not answering your phone? That’s just barbaric! Anyway, I can’t talk for long- not supposed to be communicating with the outside world at all. I’m having a Seclusion Week at the Horologium Spa- acid peels, meditation, sandblasting, the whole shindig- you should really come next time. _But!_ I did get a little illicit hologram about an auction tomorrow night. Something about mind control tech, all very droll and so _boring._ What’s the point in working in television if you don’t already know how to control minds? Anyway, don’t want to pass on too many details over a line I don’t own- come by in the morning at ten if you really want to know more. I’ll smuggle you in! You know I’ll always break rules for my favourite detective.” 

I winced, Cecil’s voice cutting through my head like a glittery sledgehammer and reminding me that I hadn’t slept. But the headache would have to wait till I could afford to stop thinking. 

The Soul. I’d almost forgotten about it. As soon as Nureyev showed up my whole world went back to revolving around him, mind controlling AI hiveminds be damned. 

And now I’d been reminded that there were two problems to fix. Fine. I was the sort of lady who could juggle multiple plates. Wait, no. Spin. You spin plates. 

Damn it. I was exhausted. 

Turning to lean on the wall I caught sight of Nureyev, lying where I’d left him. A little light from the street hitting his face. Highlighting the sharp edges of his cheeks, their hollows. 

Okay. One thing was for sure. I wasn’t leaving him here. I wasn’t leaving his side at all, not if I could help it. So- 

So that would mean whatever it had to. 

Decision made. No time to dwell on it. More calls to make. 

I cracked my knuckles and dialled Rita’s number. She answered on the first ring. 

“Mista Steel! You’re alive- wait- _are_ you alive? Or is this some sorta AI using your phone and maybe also your voice to-”

“Rita, you made me watch that thing with the alien boyfriend last Friday.”

“Oh. Oh! _Which_ thing with the alien boyfriend?”

“The one with the love triangle you hate, listen-”

“It is you!”

“Yeah.” I smiled and leaned against the wall. It’s nice to hear someone be genuinely happy to hear from you sometimes. “Alive and well. Or. Mainly. How is everything? Have Dark Matters been trying to get in touch with you or the office?”

“Yep! A lot. Not me specifically, but I relined the office phone so it went to my phone and Agent Wire’s been calling non-stop- I haven’t answered ‘cause of what you said before but she sounded real angry and then real worried.”

Sure she was. 

“Just keep not answering. How’s the transfer going on the Soul thing?”

“Not quite done, ‘cause in the end to make it useable on any platform I thought the easiest way would be to make it _sonic!_ So all’s you need to do is play the file but that’ll still take a couple of hours to convert.”

“Sonic? Like… sounds? You can do that?”

“Sure, Mista Steel. It’s all just frequencies.”

Goddamn she was a genius. 

“Goddamn, you’re a genius.” I was getting sort of better at saying my compliments out loud. Rita’s grin was almost audible. 

“Aw, Mista Steel!”

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, can you do something else for me? It’s more Dark Matters stuff. You think you could find a personnel file?”

She hesitated. “I’m just checking, but you mean ‘find’ as in ‘break into their database’?”

“I do.”

“But aren’t you working with them? I’m only asking ‘cause I know how you get with the paranoia.”

“Yeah… I know too.” Another thing I was working on; recognising when people were genuinely worried about me and not snapping at them like an asteroid turtle. “This isn’t that. I promise. It’s- it’s to help someone. I need you to get all you can on an ‘Agent N’-,” and I hesitated again. If Nureyev was himself he’d hate me for handing out his name to anyone. But then this wasn’t anyone; it was Rita, and I was doing it to save him, “his name’s Peter Nureyev. Anything you can find- no matter what.”

“Sure. Mista Steel…Just take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will if you do.” 

“Well, I will if _you_ do.”

“We’ll both ‘do’. I’ll call again soon.”

As soon as I’d hung up the empty building felt emptier. For about five seconds. 

“Some people would get angry about this. Aside from anything else I did _just_ get out of my last kidnapping.” 

Nureyev had woken up. 

I turned, looked down at him. He was standing now, my coat folded on the ground beside him. His glasses glinted darkly as he glared. 

“Thanks for not interrupting my call.” 

“I heard you running a background check on me. Seemed like I might learn more about why if I waited.” He folded his arms. “You aren’t going to kill me, Detective Steel. So this ends either with you letting me go, or me escaping. Or I suppose I just live in a hole forever.”

Nureyev paused, he sighed. 

“I won’t tell Dark Matters what you’ve done. I won’t even ask why, if you just let me go.”

“I’m not- this isn’t me kidnapping you!” He snorted. “It’s not! Listen- the thing is-”

Would telling him break his brain or something? No, that was stupid. 

“Nureyev, I need you to listen to me.”

“Is this going to be a repeat of your outburst back at the Core?”

I decided to ignore that. “Something’s happened to you. We know each other- or we knew each other. You’re not a Dark Matters agent. You’re a thief. A really good thief!” I added, seeing him start to frown. “The best thief! The first time we met you were _posing_ as a Dark Matters agent- Rex Glass- and you used the cover to steal the Grimpotheuthis Mask. Is any of that familiar?”

“Yes.” Maybe my heart jumped a little at that before what he said next crushed it again, “Because it’s printed in a case file which I’ve read. I know about the ‘Rex Glass’ incident, all of Dark Matters does. The number of people who have managed to fake being an agent is in single figures.”

“Fine. So- you don’t remember Miasma? The unstoppable train? The Martian weapon? What happened that- what happened with them?”

He rolled his head back and shrugged. “You’ve lived a remarkable life.”

“Not an answer.”

“Very well.” Nureyev cleared his throat. “Detective Steel. I’m very sorry but I don’t remember any of those things because they did not happen to me.” Pacing forward, he stood directly below me. “It’s a lot more likely that there’s some thief out there running around with a 3D skinprint of my face, don’t you think?”

“And your name?”

He smiled thinly, the shadows making the line dark across his face. “My name’s not exactly highly protected information.”

That shouldn’t have stung. 

Nureyev was watching my face; he must have seen my jaw tighten because he sighed and when he spoke again his voice was gentler, almost kind. Which obviously made me instantly suspicious.

“I think that this… ‘friend’ of yours has got under your skin. He’s a criminal, yes? He won you over as Rex Glass and then- according to you- he did it again. And then he vanished. No doubt to some unfortunate end given his work. Perhaps you feel responsible for that. So I show up, as myself, and you blame yourself for, well, _me._ You’ve got too much heart, Detective Steel, and you’re wasting it on an immoral sociopath.” 

“Oh no- no way, buddy.” I stepped closer to the edge, “I know what I know. You’re not gaslighting your way out of this.”

“Did this other Nureyev make a habit of ‘gaslighting his way’ out of things?”

“No! Well- not recently. And he’s- _you’re_ \- not an ‘immoral sociopath’.” Was it weird that I felt offended on Nureyev’s behalf because he’d insulted himself? Yeah, it was weird.

“Thanks for defending my honour.” Nureyev raised an eyebrow up at me. “You’re trying to ‘save’ your boyfriend and that’s very… admirable. Truly. But finding the Soul is more important.”

“If that’s what you’re worried about then don’t waste your breath. I’ve found it already.” Maybe I sounded a little petulant about it. Wasn’t like there wasn’t cause. 

Still petulant, I went back to my phone. I wasn’t looking at him when he spoke. 

“What?” Nureyev’s voice was strange- small and almost frightened. So completely unlike himself- either the real him or Agent N. “What do you mean?”

“Nureyev, are you-?”

“Tell me.”

“... It’s being sold at an auction. Tomorrow night.”

He lowered his head and turned away from me. “You’re sure about this?” 

I considered. It was Cecil, after all. “Ninety five percent.” 

“Hardly enough to risk.”

I saw one of his hands tighten into a fist, then his fingers flexed out again. I knew Nureyev well enough to know he was thinking, what I couldn’t tell was why my knowing where the Soul would be was a bad thing. 

“Nureyev. You okay?”

He didn’t answer. Not for a long moment. Then:

“What’s your plan for retrieving it? Are you going to attend the auction?”

I hesitated, watching the tense lines of his shoulders and neck. What was he thinking? “I’m not looking forward to it. Being around that many rich people gives me heartburn, and it’ll be heavily guarded. Plus there’s you.”

“What?” His voice was sharp, he spun to look at me. 

“Come on, Nureyev. I’m not going to leave you. And I’m not going to let you out so you can go back to Dark Matters.” As I spoke his face twisted; became sharp and hateful. His hands clenched at his sides. “So for now, I’m staying here.”

“So- so you’re just going to let the Soul get bought by some glitzed up, money bloated oligarch?! Let them- let them mass produce it and send it all over the galaxy?! Enslave billions of people?!”

Patches of pink were rising in his cheeks, his teeth glinted as he snarled. 

I was staring again, but this time I let myself. I wasn’t used to seeing him so… righteous. Not outside of his own head. He cared- I knew he did- but he buttoned it down. Hid it under his self interest and faked glibness. 

Seeing it out was… admittedly sort of hot. Even if it was really messed up to be thinking he was hot when he was all- whatever he was. 

More importantly, it was interesting. Potentially useful.

I cleared my throat. “Do you have an alternative?”

Nureyev froze. Lowered his head and let out a deep, deep breath. 

“Bring me with you.”

“Uh-huh?”

“I’m serious!” He swallowed, worked his jaw, and said again with a sort of forced calm, “I’m serious. Bring me with you. I won’t make any attempt to contact Dark Matters without your say so, and I won’t ask to do it at all until we recapture the Soul. When we do… we can discuss what to do then, then.” 

“And I’m supposed to believe you?”

He looked up at me, unflinching. “Juno, _please._ ”

It was too much.

I turned away, scratched at my chin. Considered. 

Despite everything, I wanted to trust him. 

I walked away from the elevator shaft, and I didn’t answer his question. 

“When I woke up back at the Core I overheard some of what the woman who grabbed me said. She mentioned that they were working for someone called MacMarn- said that he was ‘gone’. That’s got to be Raj MacMarn. He’s CEO of Hyperion Fission.”

Nureyev was still staring at me, head slightly tilted now. I saw his eyebrows pull together, not quite understanding what I was getting at. 

“If he was in charge of the people who abducted you, then he’s probably the one who’s got the Soul. Probably the one who set up the auction- and even if he’s dead it’s still running.”

“I can… see how that makes sense.” Nureyev’s head tilted further, like a snake examining an out of reach mouse. “What’s your point?”

I paced right, turned and paced back. “I figure it can’t hurt to go check out his apartment. Look for a paper trail. See if we can figure out where the Soul’s being stored.”

Nureyev’s head snapped up. I could feel his eyes burning into me. 

“We?”

I sighed. Here went a lot. “Whatever else is going on here, I think you know how dangerous the Soul is. I think you know we have a decent chance of getting it before it can hurt anyone if we work together. And I really, really hope you know that there’s no way I’d give you all the information- meaning that if you stab me in the back then the Soul’s gone.”

Nureyev laughed. It was a brief little gasp of a noise, sounded like it had been startled out of him. His eyes widened- he looked like he hadn’t known he could make that sound. Like he hadn’t laughed before- but I know I’m just being dramatic with that one. There was no way. Right? 

I gave him a moment, turning away.

“Yes.” He said finally, “Good point. No backstabbing.”

All right then.

I’d need to work on solving Nureyev himself at the same time. Was it stupid to hope for so much from my multitasking? Definitely. And if we got the Soul back and he was still stuck in Agent N mode… 

I’d put a pin in that bridge and cross it when I had to. 

God _damn_ my metaphors were getting tangled. 

So yeah. Stupid, exhausted, I was a bad decison making machine. But as I got the ladder and watched Nureyev climb out, I realised that I didn’t have it in me to regret this one. He didn’t look happy, but he looked relieved. I guess eventually love makes you so fucking stupid that even that feels like goddamn sunlight. 

He held out my still folded coat without meeting my eyes. “Thanks.”

“It’d be rude to kidnap someone then let them freeze.”

“Really not what I meant.” I caught a quickly suppressed twitch of a smile from him. “Given that you don’t trust me it’s taking a lot to… well, trust me. Thank you.” 

No, I thought again as we headed out together, I couldn’t regret this mistake at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not really going to be a chapter but I felt like Juno needed the space to be a jerk. So here is a chapter of Juno being a jerk.

We’d been picking our way through Hyperion’s back streets and underground passages for ten minutes when Nureyev spoke up. 

“This isn’t the way to the Core.”

“It’s not.”

“Detective Steel, we had an agreement.”

Trying to work with him was... difficult. I’d been running on adrenaline when we’d escaped before, and now it was gone and the full weight of the situation had started to hit. 

So, like the coward I was, I’d been walking ahead; to lead the way, sure, but really because it gave me an excuse not to look at him. Now I turned back and tried to make myself meet his eyes. “If I was going to betray you, I’d be more subtle about it. I told you before, I keep the information and you don’t stab me in the back.”

He scrutinised me. Finally nodded, finger on the bridge of his glasses. “All right. I did agree to that. I’d still appreciate knowing our _immediate_ destination.”

Crud. It couldn’t hurt anything, right? Besides, whatever they’d done to him he was still more or less Nureyev, and Nureyev wouldn’t be happy to follow me around blind all night. I needed him friendly. 

“That’s… fair.” I cleared my throat, turned away and kept walking. “So MacMarn’s one of those ‘reclusive weirdo’ billionaires. Lives above the Core in a penthouse suite, has a boardroom, office, lab, everything he needs inside it. Never comes out. I mean, I can’t blame him. If I had to choose between isolation and the company of rich people I know what I’d go for.”

I caught a flash of a quickly suppressed smile. Another difference; not that I was keeping count. The real Nureyev never held back a laugh. 

“Anyway, so.” I pushed on. Had to keep pushing on. “The thing about rich, reclusive weirdos is that they get obsessive. They get scared that something even their money can’t stop will come along and kill them. MacMarn’s a germaphobe. A lot of them are. So they pay for the best- meaning ‘most expensive’- cleaning service. Hot plasma.”

I heard Nureyev stop in his tracks. “That’s insane.”

“Insane, dangerous, a complete waste of time. Tick all three boxes. Only one company offers it.”

He stumbled, catching up with me and dashing a couple of steps ahead. He had this new nervous energy, less elegance. _“_ And you know the company? They can get us into the apartment?”

“I know one of their workers. And hopefully I can get him to lend us a couple of uniforms. The way we look now- I’m a mess, you’re-,” unshaven, suit bloodied, tie crooked, he could pull it off but- _nope,_ ending that train of thought right there, “even worse.”

His reply was dry. “Thanks for the compliment. Next time I get kidnapped I’ll bring a change of clothes.”

“I didn’t mean- let’s just... keep moving. Can’t risk a Dark Matters drone spotting us.”

He didn’t argue. Part of me hoped maybe he wasn’t as eager to go back to them as he’d said, but I pushed it down. No way it would be that easy. More likely he just knew I’d choose chasing him over chasing the Soul, and as I had a better lead on that than Dark Matters- 

He was being pragmatic. That was all. 

\--

Webb Bisset’s apartment block was as grimey as I remembered; apparently there were some places so dirty even Ramses’ overhaul hadn’t been able to make a difference. 

It was almost comforting. 

I rang his buzzer, waited for a response. It came after about thirty seconds, crackling through the speaker. 

“What- who’s there? Too goddamn late-”

“Bisset. It’s Juno Steel.” I sighed. “The detective?”

“Yeah, yeah. I remember you. Doesn’t explain what you’re doin’ calling this time.” His voice was hardi, old and cragged and thick with years of smoking tar sticks. “What the hell-?”

“I’m _sorry._ I need to call in that favour you owe me.” 

No reply for a long moment, then he exhaled. It turned into a coughing fit. Finally; “Sure chose a nice time for it. Fine. Come up.”

His apartment looked even worse on the inside than it had outside. Heaps of clothes, of unwashed dishes, of boxes and junk. Smells stuck cultivating in the greasy air. Dirtiest thing of all was Bisset himself; the old man was wearing a sweat stained vest and a month’s worth of grime. He scowled at us. “What do you want?”

“Overalls. Two pairs. And to borrow your van.” 

“Get stuffed.”

“Come on, I’ll bring it back with a full tank.”

“What do you want it for?” He scowled at me, I saw his eyes shift back over to Nureyev. “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s…” I hesitated. There was an easy way out here, but Nureyev might not like it. “He’s in the same situation you were.” 

Nureyev startled behind me. I shot him a glance and tried to signal not to say anything with a half shrug. Maybe he got it, maybe he didn’t, either way he glared back and stayed quiet. I could work with that.

Bisset made a low grunting noise and peered at Nureyev. “In trouble, are you?”

“Leave him alone.” 

“Heh. Don’t look so sour faced, kid.” Bisset smirked past me, still looking at Nureyev, who recoiled a step- I couldn’t blame him, Bisset’s eyes were like a laser beam. “Juno’s top notch. He’ll sort out whatever you’ve got yourself tangled in. Got to say though, no way my overalls are going to fit you. You’ll need to slouch.”

“He’ll cope.” 

“He’ll look like he’s wearing capri pants. But none of my fucking bussiness.”

The overalls were thankfully, amazingly, _clean._ Unfortunately they were also lemon yellow, the words ‘Hyperion Plasma Clean’ plastered across the back in bold red letters. Bisset left us his bedroom (bed submerged in empty takeout boxes and garbage bags) to change in.

“Here. Catch.” I tossed Nureyev a pair. He caught them, held them up with a frown. 

“These are flattering.” 

“Maybe once this is over you can get Bisset to sell you a pair.” I turned away to change. Heard him doing the same behind me. And even though we were in the dirtiest apartment in Hyperion, even though I hadn’t slept in going on forty hours now, even though this could only be considered the _least_ erotic of all situations-

Nope. _Nope_. 

“I think the dirt’s a revolution against his job. He spends all day cleaning up for rich assholes, he comes back here and he makes all the mess he wants.” I was trying _really_ hard to get my voice to sound normal. Didn’t quite work. 

“Yes. Well.” Nureyev cleared his throat and I heard him fold his jacket. Of course he’d fold his jacket, couldn’t get creases in the suit which had been through a kidnapping and a sewer or he might ruin it. Next he’d pull his tie over his head, get it caught on his ear and it would be so easy to reach over and-

Damn it. I closed my eye, stepped into my overalls. Pulled them up and, very, very definitely zipped the front. 

“Detective Steel?”

“What?”

“I asked what it was you helped him with. Unless there’s client confidentiality?”

“Technically there isn’t but… it’s a long story.” And not one I wanted to get into, not with everything already as weird as it was. 

“None of my business. I understand. I’m sorry for prying.” That wasn’t what I’d meant, and if he’d been himself he would have understood that- 

But he wasn’t. So he didn’t. 

I let out a breath through my teeth. Told myself to get it together. 

“If I’m in the same situation as him, does that make me a client now?”

I laughed. “Do you want me to bill you?”

“Could I afford you if you did?”

“Probably. You’ve seen my office, you know I don’t-”

Except he hadn’t seen my office. 

It was too easy to settle into this pattern with him. Bantering, bickering, like we were what we _were._

“Detective.” He’d appeared beside me. Head tilted, suit folded over his arm, looking just as ridiculous as I did. Yellow overalls would never be anything else, and his expression was so _serious_. Too serious. No sardonic eyebrow, no sharp toothed smile. 

God, I missed him. More than I’d known.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed immediately. Is it wrong that I was relieved? Knowing when I was lying was the most Nureyev thing he’d done all evening. “I had hoped we could work past your... confusion. I know you can’t trust me, but if we’re working together-”

Somehow that was the last straw. I was angry, and it wasn’t his fault, but he was calling _me_ out for not trusting him and I _knew_ it wasn’t his fault, but I just wanted him to know me-!

“Hey- I didn’t mention it, and _I’m_ not confused!” My words came out in a snap. I saw Nureyev’s expression flicker from shocked to angry, and then- then he seemed poised to push further. But he didn’t. Instead he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. 

“All right.” 

And that hurt too. That he was letting it go. Because if he knew me, he’d be mad with me.

And suddenly I had to make him mad. 

“Y’know what, Nureyev? Maybe I’m confused because as far as I can see it there’s only one reason you would have been at that bar to begin with. I’m on your side because I know you and I really hope you didn’t steal the Soul- but if I was wrong? If I _really_ don’t know you then it’s looking a _lot_ like you took it, tried to sell it to MacMarn, and he double crossed you.”

Silence. He stepped back. I regretted what I’d said. 

The thing was, it wasn’t a bad theory. _If_ I hadn’t known him. But Nureyev had turned on Miasma, he was- well, he wasn’t good because who was, but he wouldn’t risk anything as dangerous as the Soul getting out. 

But I had to be an asshole. Had to try my best to hurt him. 

It worked. 

He went silent. Turned away from me. His voice came quiet and soft and above all the rest of it, resigned. 

“Fine. I… see your point. I’ve not been on Mars long. I don’t have… connections here. Eventually drinking alone in my apartment lost its appeal. So I went to a bar. I didn’t want to be recognised by anyone, so I went somewhere where I was certain there would only be strangers. It was deeply depressing and that was exactly what I was looking for.” He paused, shrugged. “I can only guess that other patrons saw me, decided I looked like I might have money and might not be missed, and took advantage of the situation. From there I suppose the Soul fell into the hands of their employer. So. I was an idiot. I’ve potentially doomed the entire galaxy because I was _sad._ It was unprofessional, and probably Dark Matters will want me killed whether we get it back or not.” 

He slumped. Deflated. Straightened himself as he turned back toward me with a thin smile. “Probably not as interesting an answer as you were hoping for. Sorry.”

I should have apologised. Right then. Told him I was sorry for being an asshole, but he moved faster than me. Was gone out of the room in a second. 

I couldn’t blame him.

Christ, this was bad even for me. 

How long had he been here, sitting alone in that empty apartment, with me just a few blocks away? I should have _known-_ I should have sensed it somehow. Gone to help him long before I got sucked into this mess.

Instead I’d done what I always managed to do. I’d taken what already hurt and cut deeper. 

\--

We didn’t speak as we left, me mumbling a ‘thanks’ to Webb before heading down to his van. I started the engine and Nureyev sat silent and apparently placid in the passenger chair beside me.

How could I have thought falling back into banter with him was bad? Compared to this- compared to _hurting_ him-

God. 

I needed to do something. Fix it. Try to. 

As the van turned out onto the main road I found my words. 

“Bisset got framed. A few years ago. Corporate espionage. He cleaned for some conglomerate, they had papers go missing, blame landed on him because he couldn’t afford a lawyer and because… well, he’s dirty and unlikeable and nobody was going to bother defending him. I was in the building for another case. It took me five minutes of checking to prove that he was innocent, another five to find the guilty exec. And then I used those ten minutes of work to guilt an old man into endangering his livelihood by lending us supplies which will _definitely_ be linked back to him if we’re caught.” Nureyev was watching me, I couldn’t bring myself to turn and meet his eyes. “I didn’t not tell you because of client confidentiality. Bisset was innocent, and there’s nothing I’ve said that wasn’t in the news anyway. Hell- he didn’t even hire me.” I clicked my tongue. “I didn’t want to tell you because it- well, it makes me look like the asshole I am. Which I managed to do anyway.”

Silence again. Nureyev turned away and looked out at the passing Hyperion neon.

“You’ve only told me that I’m working with an idiot.”

“What?”

“That man- Bisset. You saved him, and then you brought him someone else who needed saving and he decided to help. It’s not manipulative to tell the truth, Detective.” I caught his eyes, facing me again. A flash of white under them; a smile. Sort of shy. If he’d been himself he’d have been better able to hide that. 

And I was staring. Even worse, I was staring when I was supposed to be driving. I made myself turn back to the road and wished with all my ugly, filthy little heart that I could communicate without sounding like the stupid jaded jerk I am. Unfortunately:

“Y’know, if you’re working with an idiot then I’m working with like- like a double idiot.”

“What?”

“You’re not to blame for what happened to you.” I risked a glance at him. “None of it. Certainly not getting beaten up and robbed. And I’m sorry for being… _me_ about it.”

“You don’t need to-”

“I do. So I have.”

He tilted his head, eyed me. Suddenly smiled. “All right. Thanks.”

It wouldn’t be easy. Nothing in this job, hell, in my life, nothing in the galaxy ever was. But I could do this. I could look at him not knowing me, and it would _hurt,_ but I could hurt for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would it be funny if I started calling Nureyev NEWreyev tell me in the comments


	6. Chapter 6

We arrived at the Core, this time driving past the works and heading in toward the main building. It was eccentric even for Hyperion’s skyline: three quarters of a globe, rising out of the ground like a gigantic glass golf ball. 

The security guard tower scanned the van and, picking up the right code, lifted the barrier and let us into the lot. As I parked I glanced toward Nureyev, who was leaning forward a little in his seat and eyeing the dome ahead. 

“So hopefully nobody in there will know what you look like, but in case they do- here. Safety mask.” It covered the bottom half of the face, the eyes shielded by a pair of goggles. He shrugged and pulled it on.

“This is a little…” Nureyev, completely straight faced, gestured to his glasses and to the goggles which were sitting awkwardly on top of them. “Difficult.”

“What, you don’t think you can pull it off?”

There it was again; that darting, white flash of smile. “Just tell me if I’m going to walk into a wall.”

“I can do that. Oh- plasma gun. Pack goes on your back.”

“You know.” Nureyev shouldered the pack, slipped the straps over his arms. “Plasma weapons are supposed to be illegal on the Inner Rim.”

“Oh, but these aren’t  _ weapons. _ See, they’ve got a little spray toggle on the nozzle on the end. For cleaning.”

He rolled his eyes. “My mistake. Shall we?” 

\--

The lobby was one of those places clearly decorated explicitly to make visitors feel small. I instinctively hated the white walls, the leather couches, the polished floors- and especially the twice life size portrait of MacMarn himself which sat over the entrance. He was a ghost of a man; white skin, pale hair and eyes which were entirely too blue. 

Below it was a desk, and sitting there was the only human being in the room; a woman in a dark uniform who sat up as we walked toward her. From the bleary look in her eyes she’d been napping. “You guys are here late.”

“It’s when the schedule said we should show.” I said with a shrug, making a straight line toward the elevators. “Do you have the access codes for the penthouse?”

It was lucky that men as rich as MacMarn could afford to be eccentric, or midnight cleaning might have raised more eyebrows. As it was she shrugged our timing off. “I do. But the penthouse’s off limit.”

All right. That was interesting. And potentially problematic. I stopped, tried to sound casual when I asked her, “You know why?”

“No idea. It’s been locked down since last night, and there’s some emergency board meeting going on right now. Why d’you care?”

“I don’t. Just…” I waved her off, “Making conversation.”

“Uh-huh. Well, you can still do everywhere else. Just avoid any suits coming outta there. They didn’t look happy when they arrived.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

She nodded, settling back in her chair and barely bothering to keep her eyes open while we left the lobby for the elevator. One of those fancy ones; mirrored walls and polished chrome. As the doors closed, Nureyev jabbed the highest non-security locked button and sent us zooming upwards. 

“Hey- stop. We need to plan how to get in- the stairs are going to be locked too-”

Nureyev pushed up his mask. His glasses had left a red mark across his nose, and his eyes were narrowed. “Detective Steel, I hate to ask- but what is it exactly that you think I do for Dark Matters?”

“Aside from stealing dangerous tech from high security-  _ oh. _ ” 

“Yes. Oh.” His lips twisted into a self satisfied smirk, which I guess I deserved. Maybe I’d been thinking of him as less good at the whole ‘thieving’ thing since he was different in a hundred other ways. But Dark Matters would have wanted him  _ useful _ . 

God, I wanted to hit something. It would wait. 

“Detective? Do you have a knife on you?”

“Uh. Yeah.” 

“Thanks. They must have taken mine when they abducted me, very rude of them.”

“Yeah. Kidnappers can be like that.”

“I’ve been a burden this evening. I am aware of that.” He took the folded knife I offered, twirled it open around his fingers and crouched beside the elevator control panel. “I promise you I don’t spend all of my time as a damsel in distress.” 

The panel came off, revealing a tangled mess of wires. And then Nureyev was sorting through them at a blur; peering through his glasses with a steely, smug sort of focus, one handed, knife flicking out to cut, fingers confident as they twisted ends together. 

Fuck. 

I cleared my throat and turned away. 

“So you just- you know how all the elevators in Hyperion work?”

“I know the  _ buildings.  _ Some of them, anyway. This one’s interesting. Complicated.”

“When you say ‘complicated’-?”

“Relax, Detective. I know what I’m doing.” He frowned, his voice softened, “The design is actually fascinating. A complete globe, it only looks like a dome because some of it’s underground. Do you know why? Because the Fission Core itself is right in the centre- it’s contained by the shape. We should be able to look down at it from MacMarn’s penthouse. You should see the structural reinforcement they needed to keep the sides from collapsing, the curvature to cancel out the gravitational anomalies... .” His voice trailed off into thought and I found myself interested. 

“You… like architecture?”

“I like…” He shrugged, considered for a moment, “Solving problems. Architects do that. I suppose I solve their solutions by working out how to break in and take whatever they’ve been trying to protect. But there’s something… there’s something special in building something. Making something that will mean something to so many people, that will last.”

I realised I was staring at him again. I couldn’t help it; there was this wistfulness in his voice I just… hadn’t heard before. Sincerity, enthusiasm, this was something he cared about. I remembered suddenly when he’d been Rex Glass, his faked excitement at studying the Mask. This was nothing like that- it wasn’t loud, it wasn’t preformative, it was all soft and gentle and  _ appreciative.  _

I wondered if it was real. Had they just decided he should like architecture, stuck that in when they’d done whatever they’d done? Subtracted his memories, added a hobby? 

Because he’d read up on the Kanagawa Mansion but that had been specific. Useful for that one job. 

_ Useful.  _ The word spun around in my head- maybe they’d made him interested in buildings just to make him better at his job. 

Or maybe it  _ was  _ real, and he’d just never told me. 

The elevator buzzed and started moving again, pulling smoothly upwards into the previously off-limits penthouse. Nureyev stood and smiled at me, still wistful but rapidly returning to his default placidity. “I contain multitudes, Detective.”

Entering the penthouse felt like walking into a different world. MacMarn liked his decor old fashioned; dark wood panels, polished brass, warm lighting. The entrance room was huge, halls curving off on the right and the left, six doors I could count from where we were standing. If it wasn’t for one thing I might have forgotten we weren’t in some old movie’s haunted mansion.

“The floors are-”

“Glass.” Nureyev was smiling, staring downwards. There it was; maybe half a mile below us, the spinning, humming Fission Core. A doughnut made of light and twisting metal. “I mentioned that we should be able to see it. It’s amazing, don’t you think?”

“Yeah. That’s one word.” Looking at it was giving me a headache, so I didn’t. “You know what they say about the Core? Anyone who vanished in Hyperion winds up in there. Seriously. The number of bodies that get thrown into that thing, well… we don’t actually know how many there are.”

“Because nothing burns up atoms like a Fission engine. I shouldn’t be surprised that the enterprising criminal element of Hyperion would think of a way to use that to their advantage.”

He looked over at me, “You  _ can  _ walk on the glass you know. It hasn’t collapsed yet.”

“And I’m just lucky enough to be the one to break that trend.” I followed him out anyway- maybe I was walking on my toes, but who could blame me? 

The penthouse stretched away around us. I hesitated, felt mean to use his ‘usefulness’ myself. But if it was to save him... 

“All right. I don’t just want to start opening doors. Not if there’s a bunch of executives sitting somewhere in here. If you know the building, any chance you remember where MacMarn’s office is?”

“Vaguely. It’s one of a few rooms- non specialised, designed for personal use.” Nureyev started right. His movements were smooth, cat like, closer to his normal ballerina elegance. Made sense- this was his element.

The first door he tried was a gym, second a bedroom. Third was the office. Sleek desk, bookshelves full of antiques, a multi display computer and screen in the wall. 

“See if he has a trash can. You’d be amazed what you can find in a good trash can-” 

“Detective- don’t touch anything. His desk is biometrically locked.” Nureyev caught me with one long fingered hand over my shoulder, he strode past and crouched, examining the chair. “If anything in here is used and MacMarn’s weight isn’t in the seat then the alarm goes off. Very sophisticated.”

He smiled up at me, flicked out my knife again. Dammit- I really should have remembered to take that back from him. “Give me a moment, Detective.” 

“Sure, sure. I’ll just... Wait.” 

And it was too awkward to just stand over him and watch. 

I wandered over to the bookshelves, eyed the spines. All old. Like really old. 21st century old. How did paper even last that long? “Hey, Nureyev. Have you-”

Distracted, almost absentminded, I turned to look for him. 

He was gone. The space where he’d been left empty. 

“Fuck-  _ fuck,  _ Nureyev-!”

I was thinking a hundred things, I hadn’t had time to sort out anything beyond panic- if he’d run, if he’d been grabbed, before-

Strong hands grabbed my shoulder and covered my mouth, and I was pulled backwards into the space where the wall should have been. A moment later the wall slid back into place, locking us in the dark. 

There was a moment of desperate struggle: me against my captor before:

“ _ Detective. _ ” Nureyev, hissing into my ear. 

All right. I raised my hands. Stopped fighting. He let me go and I finally had a chance to see where we were- a dark, narrow passageway. Light coming in through thin slits in the wall. 

“I’m sorry.” Nureyev’s eyes were wide and sincere in the shadows, his voice was a whisper. “I heard someone coming-”

And now I could hear them too. Footsteps on the other side of the wall. Nureyev nodded silently and we both fell silent to listen. 

“-Whole thing is a goddamn nightmare. They have me fly in from fucking Jupiter and  _ this- _ ”

“We’re all in the same position.” Second voice was smoother, calmer. “You need to get a hold of yourself. Can you promise me we can get through the rest of the meeting without another outburst? Because if not, darling, you’re going to have to wait in the car.”

“Yes. Fine. Just. God, I don’t know what MacMarn was thinking. We don’t  _ do  _ this sort of thing. We’re fucking legitimate! I mean- more or less.” 

The voices tapered out again; the executives or whatever they’d been heading back to their meeting. Nureyev met my eye. “Interesting?”

“Interesting.” I confirmed, before remembering the obvious. “What is this place? Did MacMarn really build secret passages into his penthouse?”

“More or less.” Nureyev squinted left and right. “They’re servant stairs. That doesn’t mean they’re actually stairs.”

“I can see that. I’m guessing they’re like… a way for cleaners to get around without being seen by whoever’s in charge? Because you want a plasma cleaned penthouse, but not to actually have to see the dirty little people you employ?”

Nureyev’s smile was thin. “Those wacky billionaires.”

“So these servant stairs- do they go all through the penthouse?”

“Excluding the bathrooms.”

“God, there’s a mercy. I’d hate to be the cleaner stuck behind the wall when MacMarn- well, anyway.” Classic Steel suave. I cleared my throat. “Can we get behind the Boardroom from in here?”

“If I remember correctly… this way. Stick close behind and go slowly.” He brushed past me in the gloom. “The walls are thin.”

“I was planning on sprinting, but now that you say  _ that. _ ”

Nureyev moved carefully, hands raised and half outstretched as if he was walking a tightrope. Precise footing, delicate steps. As we went voices started to echo toward us. More arguing, but too indistinct to pick out details. 

Nureyev paused and signalled for me to stop too. “There’s something ahead. We can’t get by without moving it, and we can’t do that without making noise.”

I leaned to see past him; he was right, someone had stowed a laundry wagon in here. I guess it made sense, this was  _ for _ the servants. Nureyev beckoned me toward the wall. We leaned in together and we listened. 

“-we  _ know  _ you flew in from Jupiter! We are trying to make a plan here that won’t land us all in fucking prison!”

“The old asshole knew  _ exactly  _ what he was doing.”

“You’re certain about that, are you, Lang?”

“Yes!”

“Even down to him getting his throat slit?”

I exchanged a look with Nureyev. That answered the question of where MacMarn had vanished to. 

“I’m not saying that MacMarn wanted to die, but he certainly managed to do it in a way that would incriminate the whole damn company!”

“Calm-”

“It’s one thing to go screwing Dark Matters, but then getting himself killed so we can’t even pin the blame on him? What was he  _ thinking?! _ ”

“This dirt slinging is great fun, boys.” The calmer voice returned. “But if I could suggest perhaps focusing on a solution?”

Silence. Five whole seconds of silence. 

“Here’s my idea. Raj MacMarn hasn’t left this penthouse in the last seven years. Perhaps we make that permanent.”

“You want us to just leave him here? To  _ rot?  _ Someone will smell-”

“We throw him into the Core. It’s his life’s work. It’s probably where he’d want to be, if that matters. Beyond that... Consider it.” The calm speaker cleared their throat. “Whoever killed him deleted the relevant security footage, which means they had access to our security footage, which makes this whole sorry incident look  _ decidedly  _ like an inside job.”

“You can say it- you all think I did it!”

“It really doesn’t matter who killed him. Any one of us being implicated will implicate Hyperion Fission. So we use the lack of evidence to our advantage and destroy the only thing which proves he died to begin with: his body. He disappears and when Dark Matters come sniffing around for their stolen whatever-it-was, they find nothing. Whoever MacMarn sold it to is gone- and in all likelihood they’re the ones who killed him too. Either way, there’s nothing here to even prove a crime  _ happened.  _ Maybe MacMarn left decades ago, maybe he went to the Outer Rim to brainwash some slack-jawed paupers. No evidence; no truth.”

Silence. Again. This time it stayed unbroken till someone on the other side stood, their footsteps making clean clicks across the floor. 

“I don’t like it. But I’ll vote for it.”

“Me too.”

“This is very unseemly. Alas, without a better option...”

More answers. All of a similar tone. They didn’t  _ want  _ to cover up their boss’s murder, but if they had to then- hey, needs must. 

Nureyev let out a quiet breath, glanced over to me. “It doesn’t sound like they have the Soul.”

“It was a longshot. The underground auction houses always want to take possession fast. Especially with something as valuable as this.”

He frowned. I could see his disappointment, his anxiety, written in the lines on his face. “We can’t let it get out. It’s too dangerous. It-”

“Hey- look. It’s okay. We’re not going to let it out.” It would mean asking Cecil for help, and that would suck. But compared to the rest of tonight? Not so bad. “First thing, we get out of this goddamn penthouse.”

“You’re right. Of course.” Nureyev met my eye through the shadows. There was something in his expression, something almost soft. “... Detective-”

“If we’re all agreed then.” The calm voice sounded smug now. “I think we should do this together.”

“If we must. The sooner we can get it done, the sooner-”

“You can get back to Jupiter. We know. But not before the old man is burnt down to particles.”

More footsteps, coming closer across the room. I tensed, saw Nureyev do the same. Had those executives really got MacMarn’s body in there with them? Sitting in a chair or-

Then the wall panel in front of me clicked unlocked. It slid half an inch open- enough for a beam of light to pass through and past us, to hit the laundry trolley. To hit the open unseeing eyes staring out of it.

MacMarn was right beside us. And they were coming to get him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> subtitle for this chapter: Nureyev gets his (situational) groove back
> 
> Also cmon peter you’re not a damsel in distress you’re a femme fatale get it together


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nureyev wins at bad ideas.
> 
> Also KEEP READING FOR A SPOILER BUT ALSO POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING 
> 
> this chapter has a kiss. It is willing but due to the mind messing going on in this fic there’s certainly space for it not to be cool. Reader discretion advised etc

First thought: Nureyev. Could he even fight anymore? He’d held that knife like a pro, but he hadn’t sliced anything more threatening than a wire. All right. Have to proceed on the assumption that he couldn’t, have to protect him while not getting killed mys-

His foot hit me in the chest like a truck. 

I was off my feet, I was in the goddamn air, I was hitting the ground, far back from the open wall, I was winded-

And Nureyev was standing in front of the gap. 

From my angle I couldn’t see much of the man on the other side: only a glimpse of a face, a flash of a tailored red suit as the executive half fell backwards. “What the hell-?!”

And I knew what came next. When a rich man says ‘what the hell’ there’s always a bodyguard two steps behind to pounce on whatever poor asshole’s caused the upset. There was a moment when I could have pulled myself to my feet, struggling lungs be damned. I could have got to Nureyev before they did. 

But he was faster, he was  _ always  _ faster, and he looked at me and he shook his head.  _ Don’t move, _ that head shake said,  _ I have a plan.  _

And god help me, I decided to listen. 

Two sets of heavy, thick wristed hands grabbed Nureyev by the arms and dragged him out. He struggled, but not as much as he could have. His plasma pack hit the ground amongst more shouting, all ‘who is he’ and ‘how much did he hear’ and general panic.

I fought to swallow down breaths and push myself to my feet. He had a plan, and he’d need me at some point. He’d need me standing so I  _ would  _ pull myself together-

God, felt like he’d broken a rib. How did someone with such skinny legs kick so hard?

“--he’s a fucking cleaner, look he’s in the uniform-”

“He’s in a uniform that barely covers his knees.” That calm voice again, “Clearly a cover. So who are you?”

I forced my breathing quiet and pressed my eye to the nearest slit in the wall. They had Nureyev held by the arms, two solid figures in black twisting his wrists back. I could see enough of his face to make out that they were hurting him, and that he was trying to hide it with a sneer. The man who had to be calm voice was standing an inch from him- a smooth plastic sheen to his skin and wearing a wide smile. “Do I need to have your bones broken?”

“Oh, absolutely not.” Nureyev’s voice was smugly, fakely, calm. “I’m the Dark Matters agent who got screwed over by your boss. I came here to find what he stole, and instead I found you.”

All right, he was talking his way out of it. Probably smarter than my plan of ‘punch everyone’. 

“I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that killing me would very much upset my employers.” 

Calm voice studied his face. 

“He’s right!” Another executive, this one sounded scared. “Niro, we’re only going to make this worse if we get Dark Matters blood on-”

“Mmm… no.” Calm voice- Niro- shook his head slightly. “You’re not lying, Mr Dark Matters, but you’re not telling the whole truth either. Your organisation is  _ far  _ too clever to send a lone agent to skulk around a penthouse in a badly fitting disguise. They don’t know you’re here.” 

Okay, maybe his plan wasn’t that much better than ‘punch everyone’ after all. 

Nureyev tensed. Not obviously, if I hadn’t known his tells I wouldn’t have spotted the flash of fear across his eyes, the line in his jaw, the way his fingers straightened. Fuck. 

“Gentlemen.” Niro looked around at the other executives, moving his face out of my pool of vision. Didn’t matter, I could hear his smug expression in his voice. “This is an opportunity. Mr Dark Matters here has his own neck on the line. He’s the agent _ , singular _ , who was screwed over by MacMarn. May I spin a hypothesis?”

Nureyev cleared his throat. When he spoke he was trying to keep his voice jovial. It was hollow. “Be my guest- Mr Niro, was it?”

Dammit, why was he dropping names? The right call here was to act dumb, play that he didn’t know enough to incriminate them. What was he  _ doing? _

Silence for a moment. I could feel the tension in the air. 

“Well remembered. You’re right.” A new snideness in Niro’s voice. “And my colleagues here are Lang, Angstrom, Levy, Price and Donna.” 

The other executives squawked protests as he named them, incriminated them too. 

Made getting rid of Nureyev a shared priority. 

Fuck. 

“My hypothesis is this. MacMarn took your secret Dark Matters tech. How he got it, I don’t care. He sold it. He was killed by whoever he sold it to. You came here to get it back, and you came alone because you haven’t even told Dark Matters it was taken from you to begin with. They probably wouldn’t be very forgiving about a mistake of that magnitude. So they don’t know MacMarn was involved. You are the only thing linking Hyperion Fission to this mess.”

Silence. Nureyev’s visible eye was just a little too wide. Fuck,  _ fuck.  _

He had to know this had gone irreparably south, he had to be planning to fight. Hell- he still had my knife! Yeah, that was right, he still had my knife, and any second now-

“No answer?” Niro clicked his tongue. “Well then. Esteemed colleagues of the Board, I think we have a solution to our current predicament. Blake, get him on his knees and put a laser in his brain. Make sure the blood only spills on the floor- it would be hell getting it out of the furnishings.”

And everything went suddenly slow. 

Nureyev makes a soft grunting noise as they kick the back of his knees, and he’s not fighting- why isn’t he fighting?- the bodyguard is taking his gun from his belt, he’s raising it. Nureyev is looking down, he’s not fighting, he’s turning his head and he’s looking at me- 

And when I see his expression, the placid acceptance, that’s when it hits. 

This  _ is  _ his fucking plan. 

I had the dropped plasma gun in my hands before I’d remembered to breathe.

“Hey! Assholes!” 

The fuel tank made a dull thud as I smashed it into the head of the one holding Nureyev. He went down sideways with a grunt. 

And then I was standing in a room full of suits, bodyguards, and the man I tolerated. All of them staring at me. At least a third reaching for blasters. 

Well. All right. 

I tossed the plasma gun, tank first, into Niro’s face. He went backwards. I went down. Grabbed Nureyev by the wrist and yanked him after me as I fucking  _ ran.  _

Blaster bolts rained behind us, hit the wall, hit the wood panels and the glass. But we were out of the boardroom and into the hall. “Which way to the goddamn elevator?!”

“Right!” Nureyev dashed past me and suddenly I was the one being dragged. Corner ahead, we turned it and-

A bolt shot close enough to singe my ear. They were already there. 

Then I’d tackled Nureyev to the ground, got us both behind a polished table. 

Shots coming from both directions, the smell of smoke in the air. Almost nostalgic: it had been a while since I’d been in a nice, honest shoot out. 

But then it wasn’t a shoot out. Because I didn’t have a gun. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

“If you have any more secret passages, this would be a  _ really  _ good time to tell me!” The table shook with more blasts. 

“I don’t!” Nureyev scanned the walls, his eyes flashed. “But- but I do have an idea! It’s a bad idea!”

“I don’t  _ care  _ if it’s bad! Just-”

A shot cracked the wood behind my head. Nureyev winced and gestured left. “See the panel in the wall?!”

I did- metal, looked like a laundry chute. “In there?!”

He gave a grim little nod. “On three?!”

“ _ Now!” _

With the blasts and the dust and the shouts and the shots, I don’t really know how we made it. I remember Nureyev beside me, I remember opening the chute and plunging in. I remember that the drop was immediate and dark. 

The chute turned and I turned with it, rolling and crashing into the sides, over and over and-

“Detective!” Nureyev was falling above me, his voice echoed around the metal corners. “Detective, you’ve got to stop yourself before-!”

I didn’t hear what his last word was. 

I got the picture soon enough. 

The chute ended. I exited. Into the air. 

Gravity took a second to catch up. Dazed from my fall, shaken and sick, I was weightless and floating as I looked down. 

Oh,  _ that  _ was why Nureyev had said the plan was bad. 

It hadn’t been a laundry chute. It had been a garbage chute. And why would MacMarn bother with recycling when he could throw all the refuse he wanted right into the Core? 

It was right below me now; spinning and glowing and burning the air around it into dust. 

And then I started to fall. 

“No!”

A hand. Grabbing mine. Another on my wrist. Nureyev, battered and bleeding, wide eyed and terrified, dangling from the slight slope of the garbage chute. He’d saved me. “Detective! Detective-!”

“You- you got me!”  _ Fuckfuckfuck- _ couldn’t panic, couldn’t panic, couldn’t struggle! “Pull me up!”

“I  _ know! _ ”

He edged back, crawling on his stomach. Every movement shook me. Every inch reminded me that there was nothing holding me up but him. I didn’t think about my dangling feet, I didn’t look down. I couldn’t make this worse, I couldn’t-

Nureyev had managed to get back far enough for his elbows to touch the chute edge. Then he froze. “Detective, do you-?”

‘Hear that’ was what he didn’t have a chance to say. It was a rumbling, clanging, falling. The trash chute shook and for a moment we were not alone. 

MacMarn’s body crashed down. Thudded into Nureyev and bashed him into the wall. His fingers loosened, but only for a moment. And then MacMarn broke free and finally fell. 

I had to look. 

The shape of a person outlined for a second against the twisting light show of the Core. When it burned him it didn’t look like burning, more like he frayed at the edges till all at once he was gone. 

Something hard and plastic cracked against my head and went tumbling down after him. I didn’t have a chance to see what it had been, not before Nureyev started pulling me up again. Inch by inch. 

Then I’m scrambling onto the smooth metal of the chute, Nureyev dragging me the last few feet then collapsing back. Pale and slumped and shaking against the wall, lit by the flickering light of the spinning Core. 

He looked up. Cut over his left eye, grime smeared down the side of his face, glasses gone. Met my eye between his heavy breaths. “Are- are you okay?”

Oh, fuck him. 

I grabbed the front of his overalls. “What the  _ hell  _ was that?!”

He stared at me- genuinely confused or deliberately obstinate, either way his expression caught me out. 

I was being an asshole. Again. 

And goddamn, we were sitting in the chute above the Core- this wasn’t safe, this wasn’t the place for a conversation. 

I let him go. “Just- just get us out of here.”

Nureyev sat back, head tilted, voice still slow. “You’ll need to be my eyes. I…”, he gestured down toward the Core, “lost my glasses.”

“Yeah.” I should have caught them. I should have… so many damn things. “They fell on me. Sorry.” 

We crawled for what felt like miles. First through the garbage chute, then from there into the ventilation. I went first, he asked me to read the icons and construction symbols to find our way. Finally Nureyev lifted a panel and let us out into the parking lot. 

Hyperion doesn’t get lighter with the morning, but I could smell the fresher air that said the recycler had started a new cycle. Clock in the van said it was getting to 5 am, and by the way my skull was aching it didn’t surprise me. 

Nureyev closed the van door gently as he slipped inside, sitting in the passenger chair, expression flat. I looked over at him and I was so, so fucking angry and  _ so  _ fucking tired. 

“I’m sorry. For yelling at you. I just…” I sighed. “In the boardroom. You pushed me out of the way. You were- you wanted them to shoot you. I can’t- I  _ really  _ can’t- work with you if you’re going to act like a goddamn idiot and get yourself killed to save me.”

“Detective-”

“Don’t say that I’m wrong. You name dropped the one in charge. You didn’t fight, and if you could kick me like you did then you could have fought.”

“I wasn’t going to say that you were wrong.” Nureyev looked ridiculous, trying to be serious with his face all battered and his eyes squinting. I would have laughed at him- if this situation hadn’t been what it was, and he’d have smiled his sharp toothed smile back. “You aren’t. I gave myself up because I hoped the distraction of killing me would give you time to escape. Of course I would sacrifice my life to save yours. You’re the only one who knows how to destroy the Souls. I am very literally worth less than you.”

I stared at him. Even squinting, I could see the sincerity in his eyes. 

Fuck. I was going to regret this. 

I scrabbled under my chair and found my phone where I’d stowed it. Then, without hesitating, without dropping eye contact, I took Nureyev’s hand. 

“Detective-?” 

“This.” I turned his hand over, put my phone into his palm. “Is mine. My friend Rita is going to send me an audio file soon, and that audio file is what I’m going to use to destroy the Soul. Dark Matters wants to capture it, I think that’s like handing a lit match to a man made out of explosives. But, now, the choice is yours. Because  _ you’re  _ the one who can destroy it. Not me.”

I closed his fingers around it with my other hand. They were smooth, I remembered them touching me, I remembered- a lot. “So if it comes down to a you-or-me situation again. Well. It’s you.”

We sat in silence. It took me too long to let go of him. 

This was… really stupid. Giving him my only way of fixing this, giving him a way of calling Dark Matters, giving him my contacts, my communication, endangering Rita- hell, giving him whatever Rita would send me on him. 

But then I guess it always is. In the end it’s always a leap of stupid, stupid faith. A dumb as nails judgement call that you make because you love someone and eventually love means trust. 

It wouldn’t be anything if it hadn’t been stupid. 

Nureyev looked down at the phone and then back at me. He held it out. “I can’t take this, Detective. It’s not-”

“I’m not arguing with you. Do you want me to staple gun it to your forehead? I’ll find staples. We’ve got a few hours to kill and there’s got to be a stationary store open somewhere.”

He made a delicate cough of a laugh, like it had been startled out of him, but he didn’t try to push the phone on me again. 

So I started the van. Cecil had said 10. Sleeping in a parking lot for a few hours it was. 

Then Nureyev cleared his throat over the turning engine. “You must have loved him. The man you think I am.”

I looked sideways at him. He was sitting still, pensive, features drawn. Both hands tense and clenched on my phone. I couldn’t read his expression. 

“Even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t want you to die for no reason.”

Nureyev smiled. There wasn’t any joy in it. “That’s very kind of you.” Then he hesitated, breathed in a deep breath. “I’m... sorry. That he wasn’t worthy of your love, Juno.” 

It stung. “Don’t.”

Nureyev ignored me. “He couldn’t have been. A man like that doesn’t… well. You can’t live heartlessly for so long and just become someone better because a good person comes into your life.”

I didn’t want to argue with him, not about this. But… I don’t know. Nureyev deserved to have someone in his corner. I’d defended him before. I’d do it again. 

“You were always better than you knew you were. You hid it, because you’d lived the sort of life that taught you that caring or doing the right thing was for idiots. That it would get you hurt. I think you hated yourself a little for doing it anyway.”

Silence, silence for so long that I thought maybe Nureyev wanted to drop the conversation. But then in a voice so quiet that it hardly sounded like him:

“Did he love you?”

It was such a simple question. Too simple for the teeming, seething emotions that surrounded what me and Nureyev shared. Almost childish.

“We spent days being tortured together.”

Nureyev frowned, “What does that-?” 

“It doesn’t. Just… there was a lot going on. I had psychic powers, it was a whole thing. And in the middle of that you asked me to look at your memories. Bad memories. Which you trusted me with. Maybe it’s just me being a jaded jerk, but I don’t think anyone does that without love. Or… y’know. Whatever.” 

Another long moment of silence, if I was flattering myself I’d have hoped that Nureyev was considering what I’d said. 

“You had psychic powers?”

Or that. I rolled my eye. “Not really the point, but yeah.”

“I know.” Nureyev smiled, a little shame faced, then turned deadly serious. “Sorry. I have a problem with emotional intimacy. I ruin it with terrible jokes. Apparently... there’s no cure.”

It was too much- too fast a cut in the weird tension which had settled between us. I almost crashed the van, had to pull over just so I could laugh. “Jesus christ-!”

When I turned to him, Nureyev was looking back at me, and laughing too in a breathless, slightly dizzy way. All crooked smile and bright eyes and god, I loved him. 

I don’t know who started the kiss. I hope it wasn’t me. You don’t start kissing someone when their brain’s on fucking backwards, not even if you love them. Probably especially not then. 

I’d still be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. He felt hungry, desperate, he pulled me so close so fast I lost whatever breath I still had. His hand on my neck, his sharp teeth scratching my lip. 

I let myself get lost. 

And then I found the way back. Put my hands on his chest and gently pushed him away. Didn’t meet his eyes. “Peter, this is…”

Silence for a moment. I wish I hadn’t hoped he’d argue, but I did. He didn’t. 

“You’re right.” Nureyev sat back. Cleared his throat. “A bad idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOOOO obviously there are various issues of consent around this. Juno knows it, I know it. They will only become more complicated. Should I tag this dubious consent? Genuinely asking because I don't want to undervalue what those words mean by using them too liberally but I also don't want to expose anyone to something harmful to them.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: woops guess in canon Juno got Cass out of jail good for her but also not what happens here because I am a fake fan I guess soz cass.  
> Y'know i actually don't know how i feel about Cass getting out of prison. I relistened to the ep where it happens since I realised my Heinous Error and it feels like a narrative decision made to give her a happier ending rather than anything else. And like, good for her. I am glad she got out of prison. I guess i just wish Juno saying 'screw the system I'm doing what's right' was given more weight than a one off line? Like it SHOULD be important, especially given how The System and the Power Structure is always the tru baddie in noir. It should be more difficult to overcome it?  
> I dunno I'm being pedantic and probably trying to excuse my own previously mentioned Heinous Error. Good for cass hope she is living her best life. rip me etc. 
> 
> it is really hard to write cecil because while he is a delight in the show he also doesn't get a chance to show many facets to his personality. i have done my best. i apologise in advance. important cecil aspects to me are:  
> \- genius at bio-robotics and bio-engineering and so biology?  
> \- loved dad  
> \- loves cass?  
> \- loves juno  
> \- lack of self awareness  
> \- highly selfish  
> \- highly evil  
> \- v good at job  
> \- v good at make up  
> \- v dramatic 
> 
> hopefully this comes across
> 
> also woops after everything being so dramatic in the last chapter this is now a screwball comedy rip

Dig a hole in the ground till you hit rock. Drill into that. Go so deep you reach the center of whatever hell of a planet you’re on, then keep going till you’re out the other side and heading into space. That hole is where I belong. 

How could I have kissed him?

We were parked in the shadiest back alley I could find, Nureyev slumped over in his chair and sleeping. After The Kiss had turned things expectedly awkward I’d made the excuse of ‘checking the perimeter’ and noped out. Stood, leaning against the van and shivering for ten minutes then went back in and found him snoring.

He must have been exhausted. 

Originally I’d been thinking we could split the night up, take shifts at guard duty and sleeping. But seeing him so flat out...

Also, I didn’t deserve it. You don’t get sleep if you take advantage of someone. You get to sit and stew over what you’ve done and hate yourself and live in a guilty hole. 

And because I’m an asshole, who again, deserves to be in a hole, I kept on finding my eyes drifting back to him. I didn’t have the goddamn right to watch him. And yet:

Nureyev looked disconcertingly similar to how he had last time I’d seen him sleeping, but there were more lines across his forehead. Almost a frown. I remembered those pills in his apartment- did he need them to sleep peacefully now? 

What had they done to him? 

And then I’d kissed him. Fuck. 

I ran the memory through my head again, telling myself it was a punishment- but not really able to believe it. What I’d said (garbage, same as always), what he’d said (did he love you, emotional intimacy, no cure), the kiss.

How had I let it happen? What sort of-

Wait. 

There was something about it. That conversation. Something off balance. Something I’d noticed without noticing, something wrong. 

_ Did he love you, tortured for days, trust, love, psychic powers, emotional intimacy, kiss- _

Something he’d said. Something about how the conversation turned...

_ Nureyev holding my phone, did he love you, torture, psychic, memories- _

I sat straight up. 

_ Did he love you?  _

Why had he asked me that? You don’t do that, it was one thing to feel sorry for me- Juno Steel, professional sad sack- but why would Nureyev care about what Nureyev thought if Nureyev wasn’t Nureyev?!

I stared at him. 

Did he- had he started to remember? Was it that easy; a few hours with me telling him the truth and he was coming back?

Okay. I couldn’t be optimistic. Maybe… maybe it was a subconscious thing. 

But subconscious was still  _ real,  _ right? It still meant that something was in there. 

Could it have been sincere, detached, curiosity? That maybe he’d really just wanted to know? 

But the thing was, he hadn’t. Until that conversation he’d been downright dismissive of every attempt I’d made to tell him the truth, and then suddenly he was asking about the emotional life of the man he didn’t think he was? It didn’t fit. 

I closed my eye, I tried to think of other answers. 

I couldn’t. 

Dammit. No optimism. 

Should I ask him? But if I pushed him he might pull further away. No. I’d stay quiet, wait till Rita got back to me- hopefully he’d give me my phone for that- and maybe if she had proof, then-

The clock flickered. 9:30. Time to head to Cecil. Time to stop running conversations through my head and be practical. 

Time to wake up Nureyev too, which I really didn’t want to do. 

I looked at him sleeping and for a moment, I let myself wonder. 

If he was remembering then... What if I drove us out of Hyperion? Let the Soul go. Got him safe, got him help, got him better? I had a sudden mental image of us somewhere rural, me in gingham and feeding him a healthy stew. Fuck. I  _ wanted  _ that. 

Goddamn embarrassing- since when had I been so nurturing? 

But. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t want it, and I… well, I couldn’t leave the Soul out there. I sighed and reached over. Hesitated and eventually decided to shake him by the elbow. Nothing intimate about the elbow. 

“Hey, Nureyev.” 

He started- sat up straight, eyes narrowed, arm shaking off my hand. A moment of panic till his brain caught up with the rest of him. “What-? Oh.” 

Had he been so jumpy before? I tried not to think about it, and I tried not to think that I’d been half wishing he’d wake up and know who I was. If I was right and his memory was coming back, it would take longer. It would have to. Brains don’t have an on-off switch. 

“Morning.”

“Good morning, Detective.” Nureyev reached for his face to adjust the glasses which weren’t there. Sighed as he remembered that too, then suddenly frowned. “Morning? You should have woken me up earlier to take half the watch. If you’re exhausted-”

“I’m fine. What, you don’t think I’ve gone a week without sleep before?”

“I think that your bad habits are bad for you. No matter how attached to them you are.”

“My whole personality is bad habits. Psych 101 life advice isn’t going to change that.”

“And Mars would no doubt be at a terrible loss if it did.”

I found myself smiling and stamped it out. Smiling led to laughing which led to regrettable actions. 

The same thought must have occurred to Nureyev, because he cleared his throat and when he spoke his voice was carefully serious. “Detective, I wanted to say- I meant to say last night. I’m sorry. About what happened between us.”

Hell. If there was one way my guilt hole could get deeper. 

I sighed, shook my head. “Nureyev. That was my fault.”

“Please.” He pulled down the mirror and examined his reflection, touching the bags under his eyes. I had a feeling it was an excuse not to look at me. “Don’t. I took advantage of you. You’re emotionally vulnerable, you think I’m someone else- someone you’re in love with- and aside from anything else it was  _ very _ unprofessional. So I’m sorry.” 

He took advantage of  _ me?  _ Now I was getting annoyed. 

“Hey- hey! You don’t get to be sorry-  _ I’m  _ sorry. You’ve had your brain messed with-”

“So you keep saying.”

“-and I still kissed you, so-”

“Excuse me?” He turned to look at me, suddenly sharp eyed. “I kissed you.”

I scoffed. “Sure you did, buddy.”

“I was  _ here,  _ Detective. I remember what happened.”

“Oh, and I was on Venus? We were both  _ here,  _ Nureyev, that’s sort of why-” 

“Can we agree to disagree?” 

“Not if you’re going to keep trying to apologise when it wasn’t your fault!”

He looked hard at me, head tilted to a weird angle and eyes peering. Maybe it made it easier to see without his glasses. 

“Can we agree that... we were both at fault and that it was a bad idea which definitely shouldn’t be repeated?”

“No! You weren’t at fault. Dammit, Nureyev-”

He silenced me with a sigh. “I didn’t mean to make things worse.”

“You haven’t! Everything is my fault!”

“The Juno Steel philosophy?” 

Ouch. I crossed my arms and glared at him. “I’m not going to argue with you when I know I’m right.”

His eyes studied me again, squinting and somehow still piercing me to the bone. “Fine. The second part then, can we agree that it was a mistake and that we won’t do it again?”

Well, definitely not what I wanted. But under the current circumstances? 

“... Sure. Fine.” Professional behaviour it was. 

“Thank you.” Nureyev nodded graciously. Why did he have to be so mature about it? “Anyway. You said your contact would meet us at 10? We should really get a move on.”

Mature, and now right. Goddamn obnoxious. I started the engine and decided to make an effort to match him. I could be practical, I could move our conversation on. 

“The guy we’re meeting. Did I tell you who he is? Cecil Kanagawa.” 

“The media mogul? I remember from the Rex Glass case file- you’re a friend of the family?” He smiled, added softly, “You do know some interesting people.”

It was too much to tell him about my connection to the Kanagawas again, too weird, and if I was honest- too painful. So stupid, it was just- he  _ should  _ know.

“Yeah. Complicated history. Doesn’t matter. Cecil’s at a Spa retreat. The Horologium, he said. Which is weird to start with because Cecil’s never taken a holiday before. He loves his work too much.”

“You think it’s suspicious?” 

I considered. “No. Not in a way that’s linked to the Soul anyway. It’s not his style. He likes to hurt people, not control them. Hell, the Soul would just make his ‘contestants’ too compliant.” 

“Charming.”

“You…” I hesitated, but it had to be said. “You know that he’s met you? As Rex Glass.”

Nureyev sighed. “Like I said, Detective, I’m familiar with the case. If he thinks he recognises me I’ll tell him I was acting under a cover identity. The public doesn't know that Glass was a fraud, and I’m really not interested in making things more complicated than they already are.”

Well that had been easier than expected. Honestly it was sort of… interestingly easy. 

Maybe I should push, just a little. “I didn't think you’d be so okay with it. With going along with something linked to everything I’ve been telling you.”

Another sigh from Nureyev. We turned off the highway and drove past Halcyon Park, the trees shimmering by. Finally: 

“Pretending that I was Rex Glass doesn’t mean anything.”

All right. He’d seen through that like it was made of air. No more pushing, for now. 

The Horologium Spa sat behind a high wall: what we could see of the building itself was a turreted mess of faux stone and mirrors. 

“It looks like someone had a nightmare about a fairy tale castle.”

Nureyev shrugged. “If I had my glasses, I’m sure I’d agree.”

“You want a better description? I see… a lot of glitzy, expensive looking spires. Cars that cost too much. A big fancy gate to keep the dirty poor people out.”

“That could describe every building in this part of Hyperion. Give or take a spire.”

“And that says more about Minerva Heights than it does about my descriptive abilities.” 

He smiled, and seeing him smile- and knowing that I’d made it happen- I smiled too. 

God. 

I needed to get a goddamn grip. No smiling. No optimism. All professional.

Thankfully, ten seconds later there was movement at the front of the building- a figure in green scrubs, multishaded blue hair tied back- edging around the front gate. Looking left to right. When they spotted us they narrowed their eyes and beckoned.

All right. “Come on.” 

“You’re Juno Steel?” Spa Scrubs eyed Nureyev. “Mr Kanagawa said to look for the most beat up person I could see.”

Nice. “No.  _ I’m  _ Juno Steel. He’s… a professional associate.” 

“Mmhmm.” They smiled brightly. “Great! Can I please ask you both to get into this food cart?”

“What?”

“Unfortunately we have a no guests policy. So Mr Kanagawa sent me to collect you and smuggle you inside. In this food cart.” They gestured to the cart; pale green, doors on the side like a closet. “Please get in.”

Because nothing could ever be simple with Cecil. “Sorry. I guess…” I shrugged to Nureyev, “That we’re getting into the food cart.”

“Is there room?”

Spa Scrubs grinned. “Mr Kanagawa said I should make you fit.” 

“No! No need for- We’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t comfortable. Not in any meaning of the word. Nureyev’s elbow kept catching my knee, his legs were too long to pull up so he had to sit with them crossed, all my weight was on my hand. And then we started moving. Rocking back and forth with every bump on the ground, the wheels rattling under us. I lost my balance and managed to fall into him. 

“Hell- sorry.” 

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Nureyev’s voice sounded hoarse. It had every right to, I’d just kneed him in the nape of his neck. . “So… Do you come here often?”

And that was the other, predictably obvious side of why it was so uncomfortable. Nureyev’s breath was warm, I could see a sliver of his smile in the gloom. Part of me wanted to say that this sort of close quarters semi-flirting went against the rule we’d established earlier. 

That part of me was very small. 

It was strange though, wasn’t it? That he’d been so determined to stay professional and then, despite that, he kept on-

No. That was optimism. I wouldn’t be optimistic. 

“Detective? Are you all right?”

“Yep. Absolutely. Just… enjoying the ride.”

The food cart rumbled to a stop. Footsteps clicking nearer, then the doors opened, the light spilled in and-

“Junebug!”

Cecil had prepared. His make-up and hair were flawless, he was standing in front of a spotlight, and a high powered fan to his side was catching his sequined cape. 

He grinned down at me, teeth bright as stars. “Come on, come on, get out of there. You look ridiculo-  _ Junebug!  _ What on earth’s happened to your poor eye?” 

Before I could clamber free, Cecil’s robotic arm seized my wrist and pulled me roughly to my feet. I had a second to take in the room- large, white walled, holowindows from floor to ceiling, and then Cecil was prodding at my face, eyepatch shoved aside. 

“You look terrible! This scar tissue- good lord, Juno, you could have asked. You know that biorobotics are my specialty- you’ve seen my Cameramen! I’ve been working on a version where the electronics are  _ flesh _ , I could rattle you off a new eyeball in an afternoon! How would you like a hot pink iris?”

“No! No- that-  _ no. _ ” I pulled free, shaking him off and stepping back. Just the thought of something else getting plugged into my brain...

But now he was offended, he was starting to frown. “Really, Juno, there’s no need to insult my work.”

Thankfully Nureyev stumbling out of the food cart made a decent distraction. Cecil rounded on him, grin back in place. 

“And what’s this?! It’s Agent Rex Glass. Looking-”

He stared. Then he started to laugh. Being Cecil, it lasted a while. 

“Oh my! This is  _ the worst thing I have ever seen! _ Agent Glass, you’ve glowed down to a two! You look like an accountant fell through razor wire, landed in clothes the wrong size-”

“Cecil.”

“-and  _ then  _ forgot to put on any makeup, not even concealer. Oh! And got a bad haircut. This is deeply, deeply tragic. For once I’m glad that this place forbids cameras- it would be downright inhumane to film you looking like this. No- worse than inhumane. It would be  _ bad television _ .”

Forbids cameras? This was the least Cecil-y place I’d ever been- except for how expensive everything looked. Something else; Cecil was cruel, but he wasn’t  _ mean  _ like this. Not to someone’s face anyway.

It was weird. Weird enough to pay attention to. 

Nureyev smiled, lips pressed into a line. “It’s actually Agent Nureyev. Glass was a cover.”

“Mm, really? Well- you should think about making him permanent. He looked  _ much  _ better than you do.”

“Cecil, leave him alone.” I stepped between them, trying to edge Nureyev back. Practical, professional Detective Steel time. “I need you to tell me everything you know about this auction- starting with the location.”

“Right away? And here I thought we’d get a chance to catch up first.” Suddenly there was a sharp look in Cecil’s eyes. I didn’t trust it. “Chelsea, take my cape would you?” 

He handed it off to Spa Scrubs, who folded it over their arms and sneered at me. “It’s bad etiquette to be so demanding of your host, Mr Steel.”

“Chelsea’s very right you know. Especially over something so paltry.” Cecil nodded sagely- and that was my line in the sand. Whatever was going on with him could take a backseat. 

“Dammit, Cecil- this is important! The auction’s for a Soul- did you know what they did to Old Town? If this thing gets out-”

“A lot of poor people will have robots in their brains making them happy?” He scoffed. “It’s not something I really have a problem with. Most of them couldn’t afford to pay for Kanagawa streams anyway.”

I felt Nureyev tense behind me. Hell, I really didn’t need these two arguing. Time to break it up before it started. 

“Fine Cecil, fine. You don’t care. You still told me about the auction, so you can still tell me where it’s happening. That’s all I want. Just do that and we’ll both be out of your hair. You clearly don’t want us here so-”

Cecil laughed again, long and loud. “And then what, Juno? You show up at the most prestigious underground event in Hyperion looking like the galaxy’s saddest punching bag, ruining everyone’s evening. They’ll know I told you the deets.”

“Cecil.” I resisted the urge to grind my teeth. I didn’t need the dentist bills. Why was he being like this? “You had us brought in here for a reason, right? So there must be some information you’re willing to share.”

Chelsea grinned. Cecil grinned. There were far too many visible teeth in the room. 

“Absolutely, Junebug.” Cecil cleared his throat, pulled back his arm with a dramatic flourish, rotated the index finger then stabbed it at my chest. “You! Are a bad friend!”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I’ve had a lot of time to reflect since dearest Daddy got decapitated. You know what friends don’t do? Leave their friends crying on the floor after- very insensitively- delivering the news that said friend has become an orphan.”

Jesus Christ. “All right, I’m sorry-”

“Oh no! I’m not done.  _ And then  _ you didn’t even check in! Not even a card for the funeral! Not even to ask about Cassandra!” Cecil scoffed, Chelsea tutted. “The people attending this auction are awful, monstrous, backstabbing, gossiping abominations- but they also return my calls. So no, Junebug. I’m not going to help you infiltrate them.”

God  _ dammit.  _ “You had us brought in here just to tell me no?”

“I had you brought in here because I’m very into self improvement and taking decisive action to cut the toxic elements out of my life. You are one such element, Junebug.”

“ _ I’m  _ a toxic element?”

“Entirely! From now on I plan on having friends who treat me as a human being with feelings- rather than as an occasional murder suspect and source of information. Like Chelsea.”

Chelsea nodded primly. 

“What? They work here, that’s not a friendship!”

“Correction, Juno! They work here, and I bribe them to sneak me in contraband.”

“That’s not better-!”

“Unimportant!”

“This isn’t about your fucking friendship!” Nureyev shoved past me, right up to Cecil. I saw Chelsea tense, saw Cecil roll his eyes and wave them back. “This is about saving potentially- potentially  _ billions _ of people from having their lives taken from them! I don’t know if I can persuade you to think they matter- but let me be perfectly clear,  _ Mr Kanagawa,  _ I will personally dedicate everything I have to ruining your self centered existence if you don’t stop being so obstinate and help us destroy that terrible thing!”

I really shouldn’t have let him say all that. 

And I really couldn’t bring myself to regret it. Righteous Nureyev was... still, admittedly kind of hot. 

Cecil said nothing, but his eyes were moving; they darted from Nureyev to me, then back again. His smile widened to crocodile proportions. “Junebug- a word? In the corner?”

Before I could reply he’d taken my arm in his hand and pulled me away from the still steaming Nureyev. We crossed the room and stood beside a holowindow displaying some blue tinted jungle. 

“Are you…” Cecil lowered his voice to a delighted whisper, “Trying to hit that?”

I almost swallowed my tongue. 

Watching me choke, Cecil laughed. Gave a little clap.

“Oh my  _ god.  _ It’s a new chapter in the Juno Steel Failed Romance Saga! My favourite stream! Metaphorically, of course- given how stingy you are with your likeness rights!” 

The last part was especially trilled. 

“I really should have guessed that you were into him. You always were drawn to human disasters. It’s why you liked Cassandra more than me.”

I wanted to tell him there were  _ plenty _ of reasons for that, but a fresh round of coughing stopped me. Cecil gave my back a delicate pat. 

“Don’t be so embarrassed, Junebug. This sad little love story might actually get you what you want. I am entirely uninterested in saving people- but unlike you, I am an  _ excellent  _ friend. And an even better wingman.”

“You-”

“And also, since we are actually no longer friends, it will be very,  _ very  _ funny to me when this inevitably crashes and burns. Cassandra will love it too, and god knows she has very little to enjoy right now.”

“Cecil. Please. Just…” I took a deep breath. “Can we talk about the auction? I need to get in-”

“We’re  _ already  _ talking about the auction! Doesn’t Agent Nureyev care a  _ lot  _ about destroying the Soul?”

“... Yeah, he does. So?”

“So if I send you two to it and you manage to accomplish your little valiant mission, he’ll be happy, won’t he?  _ Appreciative _ ?” Cecil rubbed my arm. “Don’t say I never get you anything. Come on, let’s go and tell him.”

“Hey, wait- you aren’t going to tell him  _ everything _ -?” 

He was already walking, dragging me along by the wrist. 

“Great news, Agent Nureyev- I’ve decided to help!”

He’d been glaring toward us for our entire conversation, Chelsea standing behind and eyeing him like a cat. Now Nureyev crossed his arms, scowl deepening. “How magnanimous of you. Why?”

“Oh, he’s so  _ suspicious,  _ Juno.” Cecil jabbed his elbow into my ribs. “I can see why you two get along. Out of the goodness of my heart, Agent Nureyev!” Cecil sighed dramatically. “And you  _ will  _ need my help- more than you realise. This isn’t just about the location. It’s being held at the Floating Auction.”

Oh.

Nureyev must have seen my expression- he frowned, asked in a lowered voice. “What is that? Is it bad?”

“It’s an urban legend. They only show up when there’s something really goddamn evil to sell. It’s not a building- they operate in random locations all over the city. Invites only- DNA tests on entry.”

“And they have an all-masked policy! Not to  _ actually  _ hide anyone’s identity, of course, but it does provide credible deniability. Plus it’s fun. And for you two? Very useful! Because the only invitation we have is for me- and my plus one. Meaning you’ll have to go in  _ disguise _ ! As me! And my date! Oh, this is very exciting.”

Cecil’s singsong was like nails scraping on my soul. I looked over at Nureyev, his expression was faintly incredulous. I shuffled a step closer. 

“Hey. You…okay?”

“Is  _ he? _ ”

“He’s… I mean, he’s normally sort of like this.” I considered. “He’s a sort of hyper, I guess. But really- are you?”

Nureyev shrugged. “Obviously I’m a little uncertain about why Mr Kanagawa changed his mind so quickly-“

I cleared my throat, “He just- you know. A whim? Don’t worry about it.”

Nureyev frowned at me, eventually he seemed to decide to accept my non-explanation. “But irregardless, it’s a way into the auction. All the rest is rather unimportant. Besides.” He clicked his tongue. There was a glimmer in his eye. “Pretending to be someone else? Dressing up and sneaking in? That could be… interesting, don’t you think Detective?”

I reminded myself that Dark Matters had Nureyev working as a thief- that it didn’t mean anything that he was excited to stretch his muscles and play a character. No optimism. All professional. 

But- 

There was too much evidence for anything else, right? He had to be coming back. He had to be. 

Christ, no. I needed to get a grip. 

Cecil was talking again. “The auction starts at six. So you have rather a lot of hours to fill. And judging by what Agent Nureyev said, and by how terrible you look, you don’t have anywhere safe to hide till then. Certainly nowhere with a shower.” 

“Wow. Thanks.”

“My point, Junebug, is that I can provide somewhere! I keep an apartment nearby, nothing fancy- it’s just two dozen rooms with a walk in bath, full sauna, lab facilities and a holodeck. A quaint getaway to take my lovers to.”

“Gross.”

“You tease. Anyway- it’s yours! I’ll have my people send over some suitable clothes and a car to take you along when it’s time. Does that all sound good enough for the great Detective Steel?”

I considered. “... What about cameras?”

“All turned off. I promise! I only use them when I need to leak a sex tape.”

“Christ, Cecil.” 

His face tightened. “It’s my job, Junebug. Just like your job is to be bitter and miserable.” 

Well that was… something. 

Before I could process it, Chelsea appeared. They were carrying a tray of smoothies. “Oh, you’ll like these!” Cecil took one and sipped at the neon froth, “They’re designed to perfectly meet my nutritional needs! They took my DNA and everything.”

I sighed, lifted a smoothie. They tasted sort of fleshy.

“As for your little espionage adventure!” Cecil turned back, smile in place, and gestured toward Nureyev. “Obviously you’ll have to be me. Which is unfortunate, given… you. But Juno’s black, and even people enjoying theatrical ‘secrecy’ have their limits.” 

Now Cecil was looking at Nureyev like one of his biobuilding tanks had churned out a bad fetus. To his credit, Nureyev was managing to keep up the return glare. “Just to be clear, Mr Kanagawa, over the last few days I’ve been kidnapped, held prisoner, climbed through sewers and air vents, and almost fallen into the power core- all without taking a break long enough to have a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, get him to calm down Junebug.” Cecil pouted. “I am  _ helping,  _ aren’t I? First off- what’s  _ wrong  _ with your eyes?”

“I lost my glasses.” 

“And you’re going to need to be able to see tonight. What’s your prescription?”

“Why?”

“So I can have a new pair sent with the clothes- god, the suspicion! It’s exhausting!” 

Nureyev, already bristling, turned to me questioningly. And I thought about it. Trusting someone with your eye care is sort of a Thing for me now. Hell, even if it hadn’t been, it was  _ Cecil _ . But at this point we were already relying on him to get us inside. 

Also, Nureyev probably did need to be able to see stuff. 

Dammit. I’d just make sure they didn’t come with a brain screw or whatever before he put them on. 

I nodded to him. He squinted, turned to Cecil. “Negative 17.5.”

“Ooh, rather severe. Did you grow up on the Outer Rim- one of the floating city planets?”

Ah crap. Assuming that Dark Matters hadn't changed everything about him- and they hadn't- I had to also assume he'd still remember some of his real history. Even avoiding all of his damage around his past, Nureyev would be pissed if he got better and found his whole backstory spread across the galaxy. Bad enough that his name was out, but this-

I stepped between them.

“ _ Seriously,  _ Cecil. Leave him alone. Now.” 

Then I felt his hand on my arm, and Nureyev cleared his throat. “No, it’s all right, Detective. Though I’m not sure why Mr Kanagawa wants to know. Or why he’d think my prescription could tell him where I’m from.” Then he lowered his voice, turned his head to me, “If I’m walking around unknowingly sharing secrets I’d like to at least understand why.”

All right. That… made sense for the Nureyev I knew. Maybe he wouldn’t be too mad about it.

Cecil laughed, “I  _ am  _ a genius- besides, so many of my contestants come from the Outer Rim. I know all about their bodies. There’s an eye condition- common among the under citizens of New Glasgow, New Ballarat, New Kinshasa-”

“I think you mean Brahmaians.”

“Ahhah, so I was right!” Cecil did a little bow. “My wonderful mind strikes again. I really should think about having my doctor’s license renewed- they insisted on revoking it, no idea why.” 

I scoffed, still standing half in front of Nureyev. “Maybe because you were using it to call yourself ‘Doctor Cecil’ while you tortured people?” 

Cecil pouted, “Junebug, don’t be a spoilsport.  _ Anyway _ , growing up under a floating city exposes little baby peepers to the  _ very  _ harsh light of massive overhead engines. It stimulates too much longitudinal axial eye growth in children. There’s a lot of bad shortsightedness in the Outer Rim. A lot of malnourishment too, the expected bone maladies, thin skin, atmospheric poisoning, you’re a bag of problems we would have fixed if you’d been born here-”

And that was enough. “I swear, Cecil, shut up. Now.” 

He did. Smile frozen, eyes hardening. “I don’t like your tone, Junebug.”

All right. Game plan. Punch Cecil in the smug face, break his arm again-

Leave him crying on the floor again. 

Ah, fuck. 

“You’re being a jerk.”

“What?”

“Yeah- I know. You’re helping us. But you’re also being a jerk, and honestly…” I let out a low breath through my teeth. “I think there’s something up with you. For one thing, you’re on holiday. In a place with no cameras. Also- you’re being mean. Like,  _ personally  _ mean, not just homicidal. And not just to me- I mean, I deserve it- but to-,” I looked toward Nureyev, “Other people too. Who don’t. Like that was an unacceptable level of mean. So. Is something wrong?”

He stared at me. “I don’t think you’ve ever asked me that before.”

“Well. You were right.” I clicked my tongue, feeling awkward under all of their eyes. “I’ve been a bad friend. To a lot of people. I’m trying not to be anymore. Sorry.”

Cecil was still staring. He looked like he might laugh, but instead it sort of drained out of him, and as I watched him he sank onto a sofa. Drummed his fingers along his knee. 

“After... everything the press decided that  _ maybe  _ being constantly filmed for her entire life had contributed to Cassandra’s little patricide. Min wanted to look like she was concerned about our mental health- but she thought sending me to therapy might dull my artistic abilities. So, now I have an enforced Seclusion Weekend every two weeks instead. That’s why I’m here, Juno.”

“Well… that doesn’t sound too bad, you sit here, you get some seaweed wraps and drink the smoothies and go home. Right?”

“I was answering your question.” He looked at me, eyes cold. “This is boring and patronising, but not a problem.”

“So what is it then?”

He sighed, and for once it wasn’t a big, dramatic, Cecil sigh. It was tired. “When Min proposed  _ this,  _ I bargained. I got final edit on Cassandra’s prison show. Which is lucky for her, because I’m the only one even a little interested in making her look sympathetic. Despite her trying to frame me for murder. I should clear a place on my wall for a ‘brother of the year’ award.” 

He hesitated. Then, in a voice which almost sounded like a person and not a foghorn, “But she’s still not talking to me. If I didn’t have the footage I would worry that she’s… hurt, as it is I suppose she just doesn’t want to. Perhaps she thinks I hold what she did against her. I don’t know what to do about it. It’s been a… lonely few months, Juno.”

“Cecil…” Ah, fuck. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him. He really didn’t deserve it- he was still a spoiled, murderous, billionaire who wouldn’t have recognised compassion if it kicked him in the stomach.

But I guess, I’d known all that when I had really been his friend. And now he was the same guy- minus a mother, a father, and a sister. 

“That’s… I’m sorry. Really.”

“Thank you, Juno.” Cecil dabbed at his eye with a silk handkerchief. His voice sounded flat. “I’m ruining my make-up. How embarrassing.”

I forced a smile. “You’ll still look great. You always do.” 

“Oh, Junebug. You charmer.”

And then a moment later he lifted his face and the smile was back. “Anyway, I’m holding you two up! Chelsea- take them back to the front in the food cart, would you? I’ll send for a car and have whatever dumpster you drove up in disposed of.”

“Ah- actually, I need to return it.”

“ _ Fine.  _ Give me the address.” 

I did, scribbling it onto a napkin. Cecil stood beside me and watched. As I handed it to him I met his eyes. “Cass’ll come around. You know what she’s like. Stubborn and angry and… I mean, in her place I might think you’d be mad too.”

“Only boring people stay mad, Junebug. Besides- I understand the unique pressures of growing up in our family.” Cecil tilted his head and lowered his voice. “We shared our problems. I was better at the game, that’s all. If I had been the one pitching her little documentary I’d have played up the salacious details- ‘come see all the dirty poor people living their dirty poor lives, top ten weirdest weddings on the Outer Rim, et-cetera’. Daddy would have green-lit it in a second.”

“Yeah. People probably would have watched that.”

“You make that sound like an insult.” He paused again. Finally, as close to wistful as he could get, “Cassandra never understood that being a Kanagawa means you’re never more than one cog in an imperceptibly huge machine. Nobody’s free. Accepting that is the first step to not caring.”

“That’s... “

“More self-awareness than you’d expect from me?” Cecil laughed a low laugh. “I meant it when I said I’d been reflecting on things. I forgive you for your neglect Junebug. We were close by association with Cassandra, you don't have any obligation to me. And… I suppose you can tell Agent Nureyev I’m sorry for picking on him. I only did it to get at you. Just don’t tell anyone else- it would be terribly off brand for me to apologise for anything.”

“Thanks. For being a better friend than I am.” I gave his arm the galaxy’s most awkward pat, he rolled his eyes and hugged me instead. His robotic grip almost broke my ribs. 

“Take care of yourself, Junebug.”

And then it was finally time to go. 

“He said sorry.” I told Nureyev, once we’d entered the intimidatingly nice car Cecil had sent. “Wanted me to pass it on. I know that if he was a decent human being he’d have said it himself, but take it from someone who knows him- even telling me to tell you is a lot.”

Nureyev had been silent and thoughtful till then. Now he looked over at me, his mouth a little twisted, his eyes serious. 

“How do you do it?”

“What?” Fuck. “Look- I know I should have stopped him sooner, I’m sorry I let him say- say any of that crap to you, but-”

“Detective, I am trying to compliment you.”

“-I mean, I didn’t want him to not help us and-  _ oh _ .”

Nureyev glanced over. “I don’t care what people say to me. Though, admittedly, calling me a two was-”

“Way out of line, like not even on your worst day.”

“-A little much.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, half hiding his smile. “But thank you, Detective. What I was going to say was, you know Cecil Kanagawa is a monster. You were still kind to him.”

“Yeah, because we needed him to help us. That wasn’t me being a good person, it was me being an asshole who says what he needs to to get people to do what he wants.”

“How do you always find the worst possible way to frame everything you do?”

“How do you manage to make it seem like I’m not being a dick?”

He looked at me and he smiled so gently that it hurt. 

Fuck. I really hoped he was remembering. Because being professional? Was not going to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2DFezUThXk :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -drops a chapter early for malicious purposes-

Cecil’s apartment felt specifically designed to make human beings uncomfortable. I mean- I’m the sort of lady who’s uncomfortable almost everywhere, but this place…

“It feels rather like being in a temple to tackiness.” 

“Not a fan of gold plating on marble walls? Or the fake pillars?”

“Now that you mention them, no. Though I more meant the portraits of Cecil. I count, if I’m not mis-identifying the blurry faces… six in this room. Do you think there are others?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.” I took off my coat, threw it onto a stupid looking velvet sofa with as much animostity as I could summon. When I turned back, I caught Nureyev looking at me. He cleared his throat. 

“I- you’re bleeding.”

“Oh yeah. I scraped my arm in the garbage chute.” I stretched to feel the back of my shirt, found the spot and winced. Still sort of damp. “Thought it had stopped, but it must have started again after I changed back from the overalls.”

He frowned. “Is it serious? If it’s bled through two shirts-”

“It’s fine. You should see my  _ bad  _ scars.” But then, he had seen them. I bit at the inside of my mouth, ran a hand through my hair as an excuse not to look at him. “Anyway, this one doesn’t even register. I’m like eighty percent scar tissue.”

“Somehow not as comforting as I think you think it is.” Nureyev hesitated, looking faintly annoyed. Then, in a blurt, “Can I see it?”

“What?”

“I can help. Let me look for a first aid kit- there’s a bathroom over there.”

“It’s not that bad-”

“Detective, please.”

“It’s- it’s really not that bad.” But who was I kidding? I was going to let him. “Just don’t get lost in this place. I’ll still be looking for your body in a year.”

“Once again, Detective, not a damsel in distress. Even without glasses.” He shot a smile at me as he vanished into the room. I snorted, sat on the stupid sofa and undid my shirt far enough to get my arm free. It really wasn’t that bad, a bit of blood but I’d seen more shaving. 

Nureyev disagreed. He glared as he sat down beside me. “You should have said something earlier.”

“I’ve got it on good authority that my self destructive tendencies are charming.” 

He swiped disinfectant over the scrape, sending me shivering. “I’d like to hit whoever told you that.”

“Eh, to be fair, it was more of an implication.” Nureyev looked sceptically at me. “Hey, you’re the one who implied it.” 

“Ah. Yes.” He rolled his eyes and went back to work. “My criminal doppelganger. Clearly someone whose opinion should be valued.”

Hell. I had to say something sometime. “You see the scar just down from there? Sort of looks like it was a stab wound?”

“As you said, that’s about eighty percent of your body. I mean-,” I felt his hand tense,“One would imagine. Based on your arm. And because you said it, which is- also what I just said.”

It was sort of nice to be the one making him stumble for a change. I ignored the impulse to gloat. “This one’s near the elbow. Nice stitching work.”

“Mm.”

“And it doesn’t look… I dunno, familiar?”

I swear the silence lasted ten whole minutes. I hoped-

It doesn’t matter what I hoped. Nureyev exhaled. 

“He did that.” 

“You did. Nureyev- look.” Ah, crap. “I know you must be- I know you remember something. The things you’ve been saying-”

“Detective. I don’t know how many times I can tell you.” He sat back, rubbed his eyes tiredly. “I’m not who you think I am. I...” his eyes flashed up and met mine for a moment, “I wish I didn’t have to disappoint you. I’m sorry.”

There was so much I wanted to say to him. Not enough time for any of it. 

“Nureyev-”

“More positively. You were right. You don’t need stitches this time.” And he was standing up, unrolling his sleeves. “I think I’ll have a shower. It might take me all the time we have to scrape this grime off.”

And he’d gone. 

_ Fuck.  _ I should have known better. I shouldn’t have pushed, I’d forced him into a corner and of course he’d pulled back- I’d known he would. 

God, I was such an asshole.

I sat back on the sofa. Closed my eyes. Dammit, dammit, dammit. 

Okay. No more pushing. If Rita didn’t call soon, I’d call her. Get the evidence to convince him. And once I had… we could get the Soul. We’d destroy it and we’d get the hell out of Hyperion together before Dark Matters could stop us. 

The rest would wait. 

\--

“Detective?” 

I was warm, comfortable. And his voice so close…

For a moment I thought we were back at that night, that I had another chance to stay with him. That I would roll over and see him beside me, but- then the world caught up. We’ve all got to open our eyes sometime. 

“Ah, crap.” I sat up- it sent pain down my neck and back as they straightened. “How long was I out?” 

“A few hours- don’t worry. There’s plenty of time.” Nureyev smiled down at me, a sort of sneaky, half-hidden smile. He looked better. Still unhealthy, still sallow skinned and too thin, but clean and brighter eyed. “I didn’t want to wake you. Seemed only fair after you entrapped me into sleeping through the whole night.” 

Okay, so he wasn’t mad at me for pushing. Good. 

“Guess I needed it.”

“You don’t say.”

I rubbed my eye, lifting my hand dislodged what had been covering me. My jacket. Nureyev must have put it over me. 

He spotted me noticing, cleared his throat before I could say anything. 

“I would have let you sleep longer, but Cecil’s delivery arrived. He sent clothes, a blood sample for us to use tonight, and lunch.”

“Really? That’s… thoughtful.”

“If you think it’s likely to be poisoned-”

“Nah, every time he’s tried to kill me he’s done it to my face.” 

“A hallmark of all good friendships.” Nureyev smiled, held out a food carton. “Holden Crater Noodles?”

“Spicy?”

“Not a clue.”

“I don’t know why I’m asking. Haven’t eaten in like two days, I would say yes to anything.” He made a face, handing me the box and sitting beside me with his own. 

“I haven’t either. But as I was kidnapped, there wasn’t much choice in it.” Nureyev started to eat, taking carefully measured bites. “Your bad habits make themselves known again. You should take better care of yourself.” 

I looked over, found him real focused on a piece of Eberswalde mushroom. And the sight of him all… nervous, embarrassed, fussing with a chopstick and a fungus just- 

It felt like something warm breaking in me. God, he turned me into such a sap. I smiled. 

“Nureyev. Thanks.”

His eyes darted up, met mine. And he was smiling too, sort of hesitant. “Cecil sent some glasses too. I confess, I’m a little scared to look at them. I mean- I can get a replacement pair in a few days, but till then they’ll be on my face, and… well.”

Okay, this was swerving dangerously close to adorable. “You want me to judge?”

He gave me a grateful look. “I would appreciate it.”

“You have seen me, right? You know I’m not big on the whole fashion thing.”

“I trust your opinion. You’re possibly the only person on Mars with that dubious honour.” 

He trusted me. Again. After everything. Maybe only for glasses, but… ah, fuck. 

I didn’t deserve it. But I wasn’t good enough to argue. 

He handed me the box; fancy looking, embossed with a designer’s name. I opened it with a shrug, smiling at the weird ceremony of it all. 

“They’re… actually sort of nice.” Thin metal and glass, a little more decorated than the pairs he’d had before this whole Dark Matters nightmare, but not too far from them. 

“Glitter? Rhinestones? Feathers?”

“No, no and nope. You’re good.”

I took them out of the box, and maybe I did a subtle check for brain screws as I held them up for him. Cecil was Cecil. But they were too delicate to hide anything. Nureyev’s eyebrows went up a little. 

“Like them?” 

He inclined his head. “Better than expected. Probably worth more than I make in a year.” 

“Well-” 

I moved to give them to him, he moved to take them. Our hands met in the middle; his fingers touching mine. 

“Sorry-” 

“It’s-”

He smiled and met my eyes. I let him guide my hand closer, let him let me put them on him. 

“Well? Your judgement, Detective?”

It wasn’t like seeing him like he’d been, like he should be. But it was a lot closer. They suited him, I guess. His sharp eyes and sharper teeth, his cheekbones. 

At some point I’d forgotten to remove my hand from his. 

“They’re- they’re good. Do they… feel, like-”

“Yes. Yes, very- comfortable.”

“That’s good because they’re good, so-”

“So... “

There was too little space between us, too little air in the room. I couldn’t look at anything else, I didn’t want to-

And then. Chirping. 

“It’s-,” Nureyev sat back, blinking, reaching for his jacket, “Your phone. Rita?” 

_ Fuck.  _ No, no, no-  _ thank  _ fuck. We weren’t going to repeat anything regrettable. 

“Yeah- I should.” I reached to take it from him and remembered our deal. “Can I borrow it?”

He looked flatly at me and handed it over. “It’s your phone, Detective.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I stood, heading out of the room and into the next one over- more stupid sofas, more poirtraits of Cecil. 

It wasn’t till I was answering that I realised- this might be it. If she had his file, if she had something concrete I could show him-

My hands were shaking. 

“Rita?”

“Boss! You’re still not dead! I’ve been watching all the streams just to see if there’s any news about you getting pulled out of the lake and I was so happy when there wasn’t but-”

“Rita. You okay?”

“... Yeah, yeah, Mista Steel. Have you managed to get it?”

“We’re close.” Hopefully. “Have you finished converting the- the thing?”

“Yeah, boss. I’m sending it now. You oughta be able to play it on your phone and make any Soul that hears it go kablooey.”

“Goddamn genius. Seriously.” Okay, one thing solved. “Rita- the file? On Peter Nureyev?”

“... All right, so I found it-”

“Great, send it over-”

“Yeah, but I also found another file.”

“Okay?”

“It was- it was hidden. Like the first one was hidden ‘cause it’s Dark Matters but then this one was like, hidden  _ under  _ the hiding so, so I looked at it to see why it was so hidden and- and boss, there’s some… I don’t know what’s happening in it but it’s weird and I just think you oughta know that before you look at it.”

That- that wasn’t good. But if it was bad then that meant it was also probably exactly what I was looking for, right? 

“Send it over.”

“Boss, are you sure?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” 

Whatever was in it, it would help him. 

“All right. You should have it now. Mista Steel- ”

“Rita, I want you to get out of the city- just in case. Like I told you before. It should be okay, and if it is I’ll call tomorrow morning and tell you to come back. But you need to be safe, because if you’re not then nobody is.”

“All right. All right, but- but Mista Steel, if you get into trouble I’m gonna come save you with a robot.”

“I know you will.”

I hung up. I took a breath. I opened the files. 

\---

First one was standard personnel. Picture of Nureyev, date of birth, place of birth, hiring date-

Hiring date was twenty years ago. Listed as being recruited out of New Kinshasa youth rehabilitation centre following an arrest for attempting to destroy the Guardian Angel System. So they’d taken his real life and tied it to their faked up baloney. Made sense, easier to build on a real foundation than start from scratch. 

Beside that was a picture of a much younger Nureyev, a version of him I’d seen inside his own head; a scrappy street kid with only some of the sheen he’d perfected later. Looked like it had been snatched from a surveillance camera. 

I kept scrolling. Got to work he’d done for them. Weapons, riches, all sorts of junk he’d stolen, jobs going back-

I stared at the date. 

It was just two months after I’d left him. In those two months they’d got him, done whatever they’d done and put him to work. 

If I hadn’t left him-

No, I wasn’t going down that path. Not yet. Not till there was time. 

Aside from that there wasn’t much information there. His contact and handler, listed as Agent K. His address. Nothing I could use. 

I was treading water and I knew it, avoiding the moment when I’d need to look at the secret file. 

But that was pathetic. He deserved better. 

I clenched my jaw, prepared for the worst. 

It wasn’t enough. 

First page was a report.  _ Asset Acquisition.  _ Fuck. This was going to suck. 

_ Asset P.Nureyev first radared during Kanagawa Mask case (FILE10201608). Infiltrated DM under alias REX GLASS (see further file). Marked high priority for recruitment, if recruitment impossible death necessity.  _

_ Contact made with REDACTEDREDACTED. Holders of large debt owed by asset P.Nureyev. Request made for purchase. Request approved. Name acquired at this point and backdated into files for continuity. Asset P.Nureyev legally purchased, extraction planned for- _

They’d- they’d  _ bought  _ him. They’d actually-

My first thought was, ridiculously, that it was illegal. How could they have done this, because wasn’t buying people was against the law? Fucking so fucking stupid. 

But that was before my mind caved and I felt the anger well up. They’d bought him like a fucking-

No, I needed to keep looking. I needed to see how bad it was because if I was going to show it to him- and I had to show it to him- then he couldn’t go in without me knowing what he would see, without me able to help. 

Next page. Mugshot. Nureyev, looking barely conscious but otherwise just as he’d been when I’d last seen him. Longer hair, nice clothes. They must have taken it right after they’d fucking ‘acquired’ him, must have drugged him and dragged him in, if I’d been there I could have stopped them. 

No. Regret wouldn’t help him, not now. Calm. Make it through. 

Next page. A video. Nureyev. Head shaved. Strapped to a board. Wires attached to his head. No audio, but I could see him talking to someone.I could see-

No, no no- 

The wires weren’t just attached. They- they’d put holes in his skull, the wires were going in, they’d  _ cut him open _ , they were accessing his  _ brain.  _

I made it to the nearest bathroom in time to throw up. Sat on the floor beside the toilet. Shaking. Sick. Head pounding like- no. No. 

I stumbled to my feet, fell down onto the side of the bath. I realised dully that I should have known they’d used surgery. Of course they’d accessed his brain, why else would they have cut his hair like that? But I just-

Because my experience was with the Souls. And I hated the Souls. I hated that they wired themselves into you, hated that they changed you and rewrote you. But Dark Matters had cut him open. There was something about that- about that physical action which just… anger wasn’t even the word for it. 

I had to keep going. I had to do it for him because, because if he was going to look at this-

God. How could I ask him to look at that? No, no. Focus. He deserved to know what they’d done.

Next page. Doctor’s report. Must have been written by whatever fucking psycho they got to do  _ that  _ to him. I scanned it once, twice, it took too long for the words to start making sense to me. 

_ Asset P.Nureyev deemed challenging candidate for recruitment. Highly independent, lacking loyalty, sociopathic tendencies, suggest clean scrub memory approach and rebuild. Approach approved by Agent L.King.  _

‘Clean scrub’? ‘Rebuild’? They way they talked about him, about his goddamn precious mind, they made him sound like- like some  _ thing.  _

The next page, I realised, would be them doing that to him. Programming him into their agent. And I couldn’t, I just couldn’t look at that. 

This would be enough. How could it not? It was all the evidence he needed to see to know I’d been right. And once he’d seen it we’d just- I could get him to Rita. Get her to get him out of here, get him to Buddy and Jet and Buddy’s wife. They’d understand, they’d taken me when I was broken, they’d take him and- and I’d meet them later and we’d track down whoever had done this, we’d find them and make them fix it. 

I swayed as I finally managed to stand. Clutched at the wall to steady myself. Deep breaths, one, two, three. Caught my reflection in the oversized mirror as I passed it, my sunken, hollow eyes staring and sick. 

Not good enough. Time to be strong for him. 

I straightened my back. Splashed water in my face, rinsed my mouth to get rid of the taste of vomit. 

Better. 

He was standing in the room where I’d left him, his empty carton of noodles left on the floor. As I entered he turned, he smiled, started to call something out till he saw my face. The reaction was instant; his face went pale. Struck. 

“Detective? what’s-?”

“Nureyev, I need you to… you need to sit down. Please.”

“But-”

“Please. Just, I need to show you something and- and you need to be sitting for it.” My tone, my words, something must have convinced him to listen. Nureyev sank onto the sofa, I joined him. 

All right. All right. 

“I asked- I had someone look into Dark Matters. Into their files. You overheard me asking them to do it.”

“Yes, but they can’t have-”

I met his eyes. He looked back. I saw his pupils widen as realisation hit. 

“I need to show you what they found but. But it’s bad. And I don’t want to hurt you, but if seeing this-”

“Detective-”

“You need to see it. But I want you to know first that- that I’m not going anywhere. You’ve got me.”

“But-”

“Here.” Before I could stop myself, before I could let him stop me, hating myself as I did it anyway, I thrust the phone into his hand. 

His eyes went down slowly to it. As I watched, as I sat there and fucking watched him, he read the first page. Then the next. I looked away after that, I wasn’t strong enough for more. 

I don’t know how long that silence lasted. That pressure building fast behind my eyes as I waited for any sign of anything from him. 

Nureyev lowered the phone. His expression was flat, his eyes settled on his feet, something so resigned and empty and drained in him. 

And instantly I knew that I’d made the wrong choice. That I’d hurt him so much worse than they had. I shouldn’t have shown him- why the fuck had I shown him?!

I grabbed his hand in both of mine. Pulled it up close to my chest. The words came out in a rush of desperate, stupid, loving, feeling. “We’ll- we’ll do whatever you want. I have a friend. I can get you out of Hyperion. I’ll still go after the Soul, don’t- don’t worry about that. But you’re out now- you’re not going to do another goddamn thing for them. We’ll get you safe, Peter, you’ll be safe and I’ll come get you once this is done and we’ll fix it. I swear- I’m not going to stop. Not till you’re okay. I don’t know what you’re feeling, I can’t- I can’t fucking comprehend it and I know that but I’ll do whatever I can to make it better- I love you, I know you don’t know, but I-”

“Detective.” His voice was so quiet. Nureyev lifted his free hand up to his glasses, pushed them back on his head. “Juno, I... “

“You don’t need to say anything. You just- whatever’s gonna help you. You want to punch me? You can punch me, I mean, I get it, I-”

“Please.” And he shook his head. “Please. I’m so sorry, Juno.” 

“What? Why’re you- it’s not your fault, none of this-”

Nureyev let out a deep, deep breath and met my eyes, and he was so  _ sad  _ that it crushed me before he’d even spoken. 

“You didn’t look at all of that file.”

“What? No, but-”

He turned the hand I was holding to take my wrist. Lifted it slowly, and I thought for a moment he was going to kiss it. 

Then he touched my fingertips to the side of his head and I felt them. The scars they’d left in his skull. Healed, invisible, still there. 

“Oh, Detective.” He closed his eyes. “I knew. I lied to you. And I am so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://images.app.goo.gl/DSBwSABBbCYsmmh3A


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGlLe1w3DJM&list=PLMYna3gEsVv6aRxUoYSnnXimGafz9XitQ

“What? You- I don’t-”

“I knew you were telling me the truth.”

It didn’t make sense. I couldn’t- 

I pulled my hand away from him, it was instinctive and harsh and I saw his expression flicker through hurt to accepting.

And I wanted to feel bad about that. I really did. Instead though, all I had was anger. Simmering up- _he’d known?_

Nureyev was trying to talk. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought-“

The rational part of me knew I should listen, I should get the full picture, understand. The rest of me-

“You didn’t want to _hurt_ me?! You _knew_. You knew that you were who I thought and you still-“

“Detective, please-“

Somehow I was on my feet. I stumbled away, stalked back. “So, so what is this? You get kidnapped and forced to work for Dark Matters, you go along with it to- fuck, I don’t know, to steal something and then- and then I show up and you lie to me? You make me think you’re- that you’ve-“

“I want to explain.” His head was hanging. Hands on his temples. “Please. I know I don’t deserve the opportunity, Detective, but I can- I want to-“

“Stop calling me ‘Detective!’ You know me! Fuck! Is this- is this revenge? Because I left you? So you decide to make me think you- that they’ve fucking destroyed you, that you’re gone and there’s nothing I can do? Is this some sorta ‘let’s break Juno’s heart’ game? You goddamn-“

Nureyev looked up at me. Crushed and pitiful and, fuck, not even trying to fight back. He should have been trying to fight back.

That’s what made me listen. I’m too much of an asshole for anything else to get through to me. 

I swallowed, took a breath. Couldn’t find the words, so instead I gestured with a half shrug for him to talk.

He understood. Of course he did. 

“... It’s… difficult to know where to begin. I- I am sorry, Det- Juno. I truly-“

“Save the apologies for when I know what you did.” Fuck, I could see how much what I was saying hurt him. It made me feel fucking horrible, but I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t. He’d lied. He’d made this whole-

“I don’t remember you.” Nureyev said in a quiet, careful voice. “I didn’t lie about that. I… I knew who you were when you saved me, but only from case files. The Kanagawa Mask file, like I said. And… and my own file.”

“...What?”

“Forgive me. I am doing a very bad job of this.” I saw a smile flicker across his face, it was sad and empty and gone in half a second. “The procedure Dark Matters carried out on me- the one which left me with these,” he gestured to his head, to the invisible scars on his skull, “is very complicated. It’s called Neuro Mapping. They drill holes in the bone, they insert wires and they- they use electricity to stimulate or damage specific neurons. Memory and personality are interlinked, so by altering one- by making me who I am now- they necessarily altered the other. They needed me to be loyal, to be committed to them, to be the sort of man who would give his life in service of a greater cause. They altered my memories accordingly." 

He was so- so matter of fact. So scientific, clinical. No anger, not even resentment. I felt my own rage dull into horror.

“I do have memories from before.” Nureyev fidgeted his hands together. “Of my childhood, largely. And I have a smattering of later ones, of… of the things I did. Enough to have an- an overview, I suppose, of my life. I don’t have any of us together.” His eyes darted up and met mine, just for a moment. “I am grateful for everything which Dark Matters has given me. I… can’t help but regret that they didn’t let me keep you.”

What? Something vile rising in my mind. The truth of what all of this meant, what he was saying. “You’re… you’re grateful?”

He inclined his head. “Not many people get a second chance.”

Oh no, oh no, oh _no-_

“Nureyev, this isn’t- they cut open your skull. They took your memories, they rewrote-”

“Once again, I’m doing a very bad job at explaining. I _am_ sorry.” He cleared his throat. Sat a little straighter. “I asked if you had read the entire file. If you had you would know… Juno, the first thing Dark Matters did once I had, ah, undergone my treatment was tell me everything they’d done. It wasn’t a secret. They- it is a complicated science. They can’t just insert a new life where my old memories were, there will always be blanks. And whatever else you might think of them- Dark Matters aren’t stupid.”

“They… they knew that if they didn’t tell you, if they just said you’d hit your head on a rock or something- that you’d always been an agent… you would realise something was wrong.”

“Exactly.” He spread his hands open and put them on his knees. “So they told me, and they told me what I had been, and they told me that I could do something to make amends for it. A second chance. As I said.”

I stared at him. 

This was- 

This was so much worse than I had thought it was. It wasn’t about just telling him the truth, because-

Fuck. 

“Nureyev- christ, _Peter,_ how can you- they told you like- like installing a failsafe, so you couldn’t just find out and get away. They-”

“They took a terrible, cruel, monster of a man and they made him able to see what he was. They made him a little better. Or at least gave me that potential. I seem to be doing a good job of squandering it, at least as far as you go.”

It was the way that he said it: so completely flat. So completely accepting. And suddenly I was grateful I’d already emptied my stomach, it meant now I had the space for fury. At Dark Matters, at myself. Fuck! They’d been ahead of me since the start, how could I have thought it would be as easy as telling him the truth? I’d been so _stupid._

I’d let him down. 

All right, all right. Time for the standard Steel pity party later. I needed- fuck, I needed to work out a new game plan. I needed to talk to him. 

And suddenly that felt like the most difficult thing in the world. How could I ever make this up to him? How could I ever make things even close to okay again? 

Nureyev hadn’t moved. I swallowed, ran my hand over my face. 

“... What did they tell you about yourself? What did they let you- what do you remember?”

“They presented me with a very extensive file.” Now he was inspecting his fingernails. “Neuro Mapping allows for memories to be examined, they’d corroborated the crimes they’d found in my brain with real world records. I was very secretive, apparently. It took a lot of work.”

“So- so just the crimes? Fuck, of course just the crimes- they want you to think you were some sort of psychopath! That _want_ you to hate yourself! They manipulated you- they _have_ lied to you, they just hid it better than-”

Nureyev’s palm cracked down hard on the sofa. Loud enough to cut me off. He stood up, hands in fists, arms shaking, head bowed. His movements were jerky, fraught.

“It’s not just about the _crimes!_ Do you know what I was!? Do you know what sort of man lives the life I did?! What sort of- !” His voice broke off. “... They showed me- they showed me the people I had killed, the lives I destroyed all for my stupid, petty, monstrous self- the betrayals, the hurt- weapons I stole and put into the wrong hands. Miasma was the tip of the fucking iceberg! Do you think I would have cared about what she was doing if I hadn’t realised my hateful little neck was on the line?!” 

Nureyev turned toward me, he was frantic, eyes burning. “And what did I have to show for any of it? Nothing- not- not one fucking person who-...” He broke off, shook his head, “It was an entirely self-interested life! I saw the man I’d been, and I _hated_ him, I- god, Juno. I always had. Even before Dark Matters. They left me that. They just… took away my ability to pretend I hadn’t.”

He took a staggering breath, he let it out. 

“And you were in my file. Juno Steel, the Detective who caught me. One of very few who saw through my stupid, pompous little aliases- fucking _Rex Glass._ Because I just had to be a king! Because I thought I was _so_ goddamn clever! Running around the galaxy, hurting people, living like a smug, rich _child_ in fancy clothes and abandoning any pretence of a better cause-!”

Another breath. Nureyev shook his head. “Sorry, sorry. I- I will _try_ to stay on topic. This has been a… difficult time for me, though much worse for you. I didn’t mean to- ... Anyway, the second time we met. Working together against Miasma, collaborating- to save humanity of all things. I assumed you chose to work with me simply because you knew there was so much at risk- I couldn’t imagine that you wanted to, someone like you, someone- someone so- _good._ But then you saw me in the shipping container and you…”

His voice trailed off. He clicked his tongue, worked his jaw. 

“I didn’t know what to expect from you. So I did what I had been instructed to do if anyone from my old life met me. I denied everything. I tried to follow protocol. Minimise interaction- difficult when you were rescuing me- and get back to Dark Matters. I thought you might attack me, since apparently our last encounter hadn’t ended well- the specifics weren’t in the file, but… I know that you left. I can’t imagine what I must have done to earn that, I’m sure I hurt you and I’m sorry for that too- I truly am, Juno. It-”

“You didn’t.” I’d been shocked into silence, but I had to be stronger than that. “You didn’t do anything. I left because I- I was stupid. I was scared. I betrayed you. If I hadn’t, if I’d been with you then Dark Matters wouldn’t have-”

“Oh, Juno.” He closed his eyes, his mouth was pressed into a painful smile. “It was me. No matter what you think it was, if I had been a different man, you would have stayed. And I’m glad you left. I am. Nothing good would have come for you if you’d stayed.”

“ _Peter_ , that's-"

He cut across, quiet and firm, head bowed toward the floor. “I wish you had been angry with me. Violently, terribly, angry. I would have deserved that. It was worse that you weren’t.”

“Worse? I don’t-”

“Of course you don’t.” He turned around, his expression had suddenly softened, his eyes were wide and warm, “I had wondered who would work with the man I was. I came up with cold, cruel, immoral. Desperate. But you… you were kind. You were stubborn and kind, you left me your jacket when you thought I might be cold, you,” he half laughed, “you wanted to save me.” 

Nureyev took a few steps forward, hesitant and then firmer.

And again, I couldn’t move.

“You- this brilliant, funny, brave, _kind_ person, with your heart and your smile. This sweet, stubborn, sexy, _beautiful_ detective.”

He reached me, he was raising his hand to my face. I'd stopped breathing. His voice slowed, quietened. 

“Someone who had seen the whole horrorshow of Mars and hadn’t been flattened by it. You’re good to people- even if they’ve done nothing to earn it. When you’re handed a plasma gun, you use it as a blunt instrument rather than firing it. And… and you loved me.”

And Nureyev froze suddenly, he seemed to realise what he was doing, he stepped back. His words came faster and faster. “You _loved_ me. And you were so, so good, Juno, and I knew what sort of man I’d been. I’d tricked you. I’d manipulated you and your good heart and I didn’t deserve to be in the same room as you, and I should have pulled away- I tried not to let things escalate, I’m so sorry but I _tried._ I… I asked you in the van if you thought I’d loved you. It was a moment of weakness, I wished- I wanted to think that I could have. But I couldn’t. Because the man I was wasn’t capable of it. And then you talked about me, you said I was… that I was better than I thought and I let myself believe it for a _second,_ and I was so grateful, Juno, I-”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Fuck to all of this. “Peter-”

“I am so sorry for kissing you. For everything afterwards too. I made you think you were- that you were committing some abuse of power when it was the other way around. Because that’s what I am, Juno. And all that Dark Matters did couldn’t change that. I’m just…” He shuddered, his hands went limp by his sides, “I’m rotten.” 

“... Peter. Hell, this is…” _Fuck._ “I- I yelled at you. I said you were lying, I-”

“I was.” Back to his flat voice. Like the effort of everything he’d said had drained the life from him. 

Christ. “You- Nureyev, they’ve got you so wrapped up and messed with that you don’t even see it.” I crossed the floor, I took his hand and tried to pull him back to the sofa. 

He didn’t protest, just went limply along with me. All the fight had gone from him. It wasn’t till I had him sitting down that he started to talk again, mumbling:

“... Please believe me when I say that lying to you, that hurting you, I never wanted it. I thought- I thought if I could just get through this I could leave, and you- you would hurt for a while but you would have to realise what I’d been eventually, that you were better without me.”

“Stop. Okay? Stop- stop apologising, stop saying that stuff about yourself.” I couldn’t bear to listen any longer. I didn’t want him to have to say it. “None of this was you. You’re not- you’re not what they said you are. I _know_ you.”

He started to laugh. It didn’t last long. “I am so sorry I did this to you. I wish the man you thought I was was real. I wish I could have been him rather than what I was.”

“Peter, you- look. You weren’t a saint. Nobody is. It’s impossible to be all good, it’s impossible not to be cruel or mean or petty sometimes.” I touched the side of his face, I wanted to pull him back to himself. He looked so _gone._ “I used to think I could save the whole fucking planet if I kept doing the right thing, and I was so desperate for some sort of certainty about what that even meant that I let someone put a robot in my brain. It sucked. And you… you’ve had hard choices to make. Kill a city or kill your dad. That’s… there’s no good answer, there’s just shitty and shitty and you were doing your best to be a decent human being. You were smarter than thinking in black and white, you made hard calls and you kept going. You survived everything. That’s what I love about you.” 

He moved slightly, his eyes shifted to meet mine and I felt myself smile- there was nothing to celebrate, not really, but just the thought that I might be getting through to him- 

“ _You_ were kind. You’d been kicked around the whole galaxy and you came out knowing how awful it was and you still tried. Sure, you had doubts and self loathing but- but that doesn’t mean it was _right._ You were doing your best. You hid how hard it was by being a smarmy asshole, you made up dumb names because you wanted to grab back like- like just an iota of control, you liked nice clothes and looking good and that was _fine,_ and honestly- no complaints from me.”

Nureyev snorted, the side of his mouth twitched. I squeezed his fingers. 

All right. All right. 

“... We’ll do what I said before. I have a friend who’s leaving Hyperion. You’re going to go with her. I’ll go after the Soul. After it’s gone I’ll come and find you, and we’ll get off Mars. We can- what?” 

Because Nureyev was frowning. 

“Juno.” He gave me a slow, almost confused look. “I’m not leaving Dark Matters.”

I stared at him. 

“I know that they might have extreme methods sometimes-”

“Like involuntary brain surgery!?”

“But they did the right thing. In taking me. In making me loyal to them-”

“Yeah, exactly, they _made_ you loyal! I saw the file! They literally said that you needed to be more loyal! You can’t be okay with that- you can’t fucking-”

“I’ve done more good like this than I would have otherwise. Isn’t that worth it?”

“No! And- and christ, Nureyev, we aren’t talking about some greater good publicly minded like- like good guys here! It’s Dark Matters! Just because they’ve brainwashed you-“

“They made me loyal. Not naive.” He took his hand back from me, he looked me in the eye. “I know they aren’t moral paragons. But they do have an investment in the continued existence of humanity. In maintaining a functioning galactic system.”

“A system which sucks for everyone who isn’t them!”

“A system which allows people to survive. If I need to sacrifice my petty little life in aid of that- well. I think it’s worth it.”

“Because,” I said with the last ounce of my patience, hands clenched at my sides, “they _made_ you think that.”

“And it is still what I think. Are you going to knock me out again, Detective?” His eyes were sharp, hardening. 

“Yeah!” Okay, maybe not the best thing to say. I clenched my jaw, “I mean- if I have to.”

“And I’ll fight you. I’m not sure who’d win. Are you?” He stood, legs shaking slightly till he steadied himself. I stood to match him and remembered for the hundredth time just how tall he was. Sure, he was noodly too- but he’d still kicked like a rabbit. “Either way, we don’t have time to be children.”

“I’m not being a child! What they did to you is _wrong_! I don’t know how to make you see that-“

“Perhaps because you just told me you believe that right and wrong aren’t entirely separate?”

“Christ, Nureyev, there’s still a limit! You can’t just take someone and force them to do what you want!”

“Which is exactly what you’re proposing to do to me.” He crossed his arms, eyes burning at me. “The auction is happening in a couple of hours. Nothing has changed as regards the Soul.”

“So?”

“So we should focus on that.” Nureyev took a breath, for all the goddamn planet like he was the one being rational. “Here is what I propose. We carry on as before. We destroy the Soul. And then-”

“Then you come with me and we get the hell out of Hyperion. Because there’s no other way I agree to do anything with you.”

“Then I go back to Dark Matters. Because I’m the one of us who can reasonably pass as Cecil, so I’m the one with access to the auction, _so_ I’m the one who can set parameters. And because,” he paused, maybe just for emphasis. That was the sort of move he’d pull, “that is what I am _choosing_ to do, Detective.”

Fuck. _Fuck._ This wasn’t going to work. There was no acceptable middle ground. He held the power, he could call the shots. And for all my bluster, the last thing I wanted was to leave him to do this alone. Either it would all go wrong and he’d get hurt, or it would all go right and he’d vanish back to Dark Matters. I needed to think. I needed a different approach, or-

Or the same approach. 

So he wanted nothing to change? So nothing would change. I hadn’t known when Rita would send the file, if it had taken too long I’d already been half scheming up abductions, which, yeah. Admittedly not great when it was considered in the vacuum of ‘kidnapping your whatever-he-is’. 

If I had to hit him over the head then- well, not that, because the last thing he needed was more brain damage but- but I’d figure something out. Priority was saving him. Whatever that meant. However many lies I needed to tell. 

I let out an exasperated sigh, hoped it wasn’t too theatrical. I’d budge an inch, let him argue me down. Wait for my chance to get one over on him and get us both as far away from the City as possible.

“... Maybe- maybe we can talk about it after?”

I knew as soon as I’d said it I’d made the wrong call, given too much. I should have done a threat, thrown a few more insults. 

No way he’d trust this. No way he’d trust me. 

But Nureyev tilted his head, he peered at me from behind his glasses and finally, he nodded. 

“Then we can talk about it.”

 _Hell._ Because that meant one thing- he’d seen through me. He knew what I was thinking and he was already thinking of a way out. 

It meant I couldn’t trust him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -slaps nureyev- this bad boy already fits a lot of trauma but i bet we can get more in if we scoop out some memories 
> 
> also special thanks to Pholo (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pholo/profile) who made sure this chapter made sense and also was as emotionally damaging as possible


	11. Chapter 11

When you were in it, walking the streets or looking out across the neon, it was easy to forget that Hyperion hadn’t been here forever. That a few handfuls of centuries was all it took to turn a barren red rock into- well. Nothing  _ better  _ than a barren red rock, just more populated. 

But this place was a reminder that it wasn’t so long since we’d arrived and ruined another planet for the rest of the galaxy: it was a landing site, a gaggle of decaying buildings and long cracked cement platforms. Built outside the city’s protective dome and now that it wasn’t needed, left to rot. 

Back in Hyperion’s first couple of hundred years- before the terraforming had set in enough to feed the population- sites like this were where supplies had arrived. They were built for early spacecrafts, those lumbering things that came apart as they launched. One was still sitting here- must have been waiting for a return journey which hadn’t happened. The dark silhouette of it looked like it had been drawn by a kid in history class: an actual rocket, sticking six storeys up and surrounded by a metal framework. Probably even had those ancient landing fuselage parachutes, those bulky suits that made you look like a stuffed marshmallow. 

How the hell had we made it here in things like that? 

The whole place was a death trap. If the real estate had been worth anything it would have been built over by now, but outside the dome there was too much danger of space debris and too little oxygen to support anything long term more active than drymoss. They’d dealt with the second problem tonight by shipping in slow-release tanks of filtered air. Our car passed them, driving as smoothly as only AI steering can manage. 

I risked a look over at Nureyev. 

It wasn’t that we weren’t speaking. This was worse. We were speaking. We were fine. We were mature adults working together towards a common goal and both of us knew that that was complete goddamn baloney. 

The thing was, I wasn’t angry with him. How could I be? He was the victim. 

I was angry with everyone else- myself, Dark Matters, Sasha- but... Nureyev was the only one here. Nureyev was the one who was going to try to run back to his psycho bosses the second he could. Nureyev was the one I couldn’t trust. Who couldn’t trust me. 

And none of that was his fault and he was the victim and I  _ knew that. _

But how to deal with it? That I didn’t know. 

So instead… this. Glares punctuated by passive-aggressive shop talk as we avoided the brainwashed elephant in the room. 

He stared determinedly out the window, face serious and set behind his mask. I wanted to snap him out of it, make some quip about how of course all these billionaires would choose a dump like this to have their fancy auction. But-

Well. 

In the end he broke the silence, but it wasn’t a conversation. Just more one-upmanship via combative ‘advice’.

“When we get inside, a standard twice around the space before we make further plans?” His voice was carefully, measuredly, mild. It made me want to punch myself in the face. 

I grunted. “Yeah. Good idea.”

Nureyev gave a little nod. “Thank you.”

“Sure.”

This whole situation was so fucked. The sooner it was over with- 

But even that wasn’t what I wanted. Once we’d destroyed the Soul Nureyev would be out of here, I needed a way to stop him first. Damn- I should have kept that stun baton. Where had it ended up? In the Core? In Bisset’s apartment, in the empty concrete of the apartment building I’d dragged Nureyev to after I’d used it on him? 

Hell. What a couple of days. 

The car drew to a perfect stop, the doors clicked and opened for us. Ahead I could see more figures making their way into an artistically lit doorway; a gap between two rusted metal walls. 

Nureyev adjusted his mask. “Ready?”

“Yep. You?”

"Absolutely.”

He helped me out of the car, took my arm stiffly in his. Didn’t look at me. Well, fine, two could play that game. I didn’t look at him either. 

Not that there was much to see, just the dark line of his mouth. Cecil must have told his tailor to make hiding his identity a priority; Nureyev’s mask was a shaped, face-covering cowl, all in black and silver. It looked like a goth version of those ancient superstitious doctors they had during the Blister Plague. He had a leathery cape too- the whole thing was very mad scientist chic, which, yeah, made sense for Cecil, even if it was a lot more monochrome than anything he’d wear personally. 

I had… well. The Kanagawa sense of humour was never subtle. I had a full skirted white gown with more layers of lace and silk than I could count. I had a sparkling corset. And my mask came with a veil. 

I had a wedding dress. 

The only positive about the tension between us was that Nureyev hadn’t commented beyond a raised eyebrow. 

Hell, what was I saying? I’d have given anything for him to make fun of me. 

Part of the whole ‘stylishly secret event’ thing was no red carpet, none of the normal glitz you got when this much money ended up in one place. We queued behind another couple- both in purple tutus and designer ski masks- and watched them hand over a DNA sample. The guard scanned it and nodded for them to go through. 

Then once they’d passed he leaned over and whispered something to a suspiciously nearby waiter. She scuttled off, quickly replaced by another. 

I stepped an inch closer to Nureyev, remarked at a mutter; “Standard fake won’t-it-be-fun secrecy. Names are available to anyone who’s willing to pay.” 

“Of course.” He murmured back. “A little faux espionage to keep the creme de la creme entertained. It’s not my first rodeo, Detective.”

Jerk. Especially given that he’d literally lost his memories so that for all I knew it  _ was  _ ‘his first rodeo’. 

But we weren’t talking about that. 

“Maybe I was thinking out loud.” 

“My mistake then.”

I paused. Fought the urge to snark back. But... I couldn’t let him win. “Also. You might want to… Cecil it up.”

He sighed like he was talking to a toddler. “Once again. The thought had occurred.” 

Dammit. “Well. Great.”

He handed over the blood sample, the guard squinted at him and Nureyev flashed a too-toothy grin back. It didn’t look like Cecil, but it didn’t look like Nureyev either. That must have been enough. The guard nodded. 

“Have a nice night Sir. Ma’am.”

And as we walked past the guard Nureyev replied in a shriek, “Oh, we most  _ certainly  _ will!” 

“Jeez!” I’d caught myself before I could jump but it was a close thing. “You could have warned me!”

“You suggested I ‘Cecil it up’.”

“I didn’t expect you to do it three inches from my ear!”

He shrugged. “Apologies. I will be more careful. Perhaps you could try to be a little more prepared.”

“Maybe you could try shutting up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” Jerk. 

The doorway led through to a wide, high ceiling-ed room. Bare plaster walls, bare metal beams. Lit by artistically positioned fairy lights and electric candles. Crowded with well dressed figures in masks, a stage at one end and a buffet table at the other. It felt like the sort of party you’d find being thrown by a really rich cult, which actually was a pretty good way of describing Hyperion’s wealthy elite. 

Nureyev gestured forward. I shrugged, let him walk me on. I’d swear he was deliberately prodding me with his elbow as he went. How petty could one guy be? But whatever, we were  _ professional adults.  _

After we’d made our first slow pass of the space I cleared my throat, muttered;

“I count… twelve guards in here. I’d guess more off in the side rooms too.”

“Obviously. They won’t have them all visible.” He nodded, indicating behind the stage. “The door at the back looks most heavily protected. No doubt that’s where they’re storing the Soul.”

“Or it leads to where they’re storing it. This is a big place.”

A flash of annoyance passed over his eyes, and I was goddamn  _ delighted.  _ Finally I’d prodded him into an expression. “I would have thought what I said implied that.”

“Well maybe you should have implied it by  _ saying  _ it.”

“And maybe you-”

“Well! Look at this! Themed costumes- a gothic bride and groom, how  _ romantic. _ ” A tall, deep-voiced man in pink coattails, his whole face covered by feathers. He stepped closer and stage-whispered to Nureyev, “Cecil, what a date you’ve picked. That eyepatch! That scar! Is he as tough as he looks?”

“Oh, he’s  _ something _ .” Nureyev hissed, before he caught himself and added, “Even tougher! You could throw him into a sun and he’d walk out swinging! He’s a  _ real  _ cockroach!”

Feathers laughed uproariously and pulled his own plus-one forward by the arm. She was short and as muscled as a freighter, something that the lace butterfly wings on her back didn’t do much to distract from. “This is mine. Cinnamon, say hello.”

She smiled sweetly. Showed metal teeth. “Hi.”

“It’s so important to bring someone capable of fisticuffs to these shindigs. They have their guards and their drones, we should have our protection too!”

Drones? I met Nureyev’s eyes, his expression was as surprised as I felt. We looked up. 

And yep. Drones. Maybe fifteen of them, hovering across the rusted arch of the ceiling. Drones armed with heavy lasers. Drones which were, aside from the shadows, completely unhidden. Drones which neither of us had spotted. 

That’s what you get for bickering rather than doing your job. I gave myself a mental kick. Idiot mistake. 

At least Nureyev had made it too. 

Feathers was still talking. “Just in case, of course! I’m sure  _ nothing  _ will go wrong.”

Recovering, Nureyev cleared his throat. “Oh?” 

“Well! You didn’t hear it from me, but apparently there’s been something of a last minute kerfuffle. Something about the property owner wanted to renege on their sale-  _ very  _ unprofessional!”

_ What?  _

MacMarn? Well, clearly not MacMarn since we’d literally seen his body burn into atoms, but someone pretending to be him. Someone with his DNA. And that wouldn’t be a big deal if he hadn’t been a shut-in who’d thrown all his trash into a Fission Core. 

One person who’d definitely had access to his DNA? Whoever had killed him. 

But- no, I was leaping. Those executives, they’d had access too. Could be others I didn’t even know about. Still... 

This case was just problems on problems. 

“Oh! My- yes, that’s- that’s very unprofessional.” Nureyev tugged gently on my arm. “I think, ah, Daisy’s getting peckish. He’s been so  _ testy  _ all evening. Let’s get you some food!” 

“Bye.” Cinnamon’s sweet little voice, setting my bones on edge. I shot her a nod as we walked away. 

Once we were at a safe distance Nureyev leaned his head toward me. “His murderer, do you think?”

“Or the executives.” Ha! Got him- I’d thought of it first. Point one me, zero to the mind controlled Dark Matters stooge-

Hell. What was I doing? I wasn’t angry with Nureyev, he was the goddamn victim here. I had to get over this, I had to focus on saving him. Not this stupid, stupid little fight. 

I sighed. “All right. We need to do something.”

Nureyev scoffed under his breath. “That’s what I  _ meant. _ Obviously. Maybe if you’d  _ listen to other people  _ and  _ consider their feelings,  _ you would appreciate  _ nuance _ .”

On the other hand, if he was going to act like that-

“All right- what’s your plan? Since you’re the guy with all the- the  _ plans.  _ Unless Dark Matters forgot to upload this situation to your like- like brain database of pre-approved ideas?”

His voice was acidic. “Unfortunately all my ‘pre-approved ideas’ require two grownups, and we seem to be lacking.” 

Oh, screw him. 

“Maybe we should call up your buddies at Dark Matters then. Have them send over an Agent- they’ve got a whole damn alphabet to choose from. Or even better, they could just brainwash me! Since that seems to work _so_ goddamn well.”

The visible part of his face contorted, mouth twisting. He really hadn’t liked that one.  _ Good _ . 

“I don’t know about that, Detective.” Nureyev bit out, finally. “You seem much more comfortable running away from your problems.”

“Coming from someone who’s running away from his own life?”

“It’s not running away to want to improve oneself.”

“It’s not  _ anything  _ if you’re only doing it because some psychopath rewrote your brain! You didn’t  _ want  _ to do it at all!”

And then, someone started clapping. I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t spotted her, watching us from too far to hear what we were saying but close enough to understand the tone. A woman in an obnoxiously large ballgown and powdered wig. “A lover’s tiff! My, that takes me back.”

“Oh- don’t upset them, Marianne. You know what young people are like.” Her friend, matching wig, sequin covered cocktail dress. He eyed Nureyev and spoke in a stage-whisper. “Cecil, so good to see you! And how tall you’re looking!”

“Leg extensions!” Nureyev grabbed me by the arm and towed me away, “Excuse us!”

“ _ Leg extensions _ ?”

“Don’t-,” Nureyev closed his eyes, he gave his head a shake. “All right. We  _ do  _ need to act. You create a distraction, get the guards over here. I’ll sneak through the back door and see if I can work out what’s happening. If I can get close enough I might even be able to disable the Soul before the auction starts.”

“Yeah, no.” I squared up to him, “You find the Soul, what’s to say you aren’t just gonna use the audio thing and run?  _ I’ll  _ go, you distract.”

His eyes narrowed down to a laser beam glare. “You aren’t exactly dressed for subterfuge, Detective.” 

“Hey, I can sneak in louder outfits than this.”

Nureyev looked poised to argue, but instead he raised his hands in mock surrender- he just  _ had  _ to keep up this freaking ‘mature’ act. Like he wasn’t as pissed as I was. Jerk. “Very well.”

“All right. Good. Swell. Give me the phone.”

“Oh, because there’s no chance of you abandoning me?”

“I wasn’t worried you’d abandon me! I was worried you’d go back to Dark Matters!”

“Well that’s what I’m going to do anyway!”

“Not if I can-,” ah, crap. I swallowed. Adjusted my veil as an excuse to look away from him. We were doing a goddamn terrible job. “Just give me the phone.”

Nureyev winced. His lips twitched. “I can’t.”

“What?”

He coughed, turning his head to the side. “I already slipped it into your corset.”

“ _ What? _ I gave it to you! It was a- a statement of like- trust and stuff!”

“And I was fairly confident that that trust had been withdrawn.” 

I stared at him. After a moment he sighed and looked back. Gave me a pointed, narrow-eyed glare. “Well?”

Fuck. 

I clenched my jaw. He wasn’t- hell. He wasn’t wrong. 

I wanted to throw up again. 

“Fine. Distract them.”

Nureyev’s lips twisted up into a nasty smile, he tilted his head toward me slightly in a mocking bow. Cleared his throat. 

Then he spun on his heel to face the rest of the room. 

“Who wants to be on the next season of  _ From the Jaws of Death! _ ? It’s going to be  _ celebrities ooonly! _ ”

The commotion was instant. A surge of the best dressed idiots on Mars coming to swarm him, and as soon as the guards realised what was happening they were moving too. I heard a shout of “Sir- you really aren’t supposed to make your identity so obvious-!” as I backed out of the crowd. 

Then, once I was certain nobody was watching, I made a dash for the doorway. The other side was dark, but I could see stairs ahead- metal and bare- leading to a walkway. I crept up, lifting my skirts so they wouldn’t get caught, stepping carefully so my heel points didn’t get trapped.

At the top the walkway ran on between rusted metal supports. No ceiling- it had fallen entirely away and left the view instead. Jagged pieces of architecture sticking up around me like rotting teeth in a rotten mouth, the abandoned rocket looming over everything. Beyond the landing site, Hyperion buzzing and bright to the right, the empty Mars horizon to the left. 

I shivered. This place felt fucking haunted. 

Ahead, the walkway ran into another covered area. I crouched as I entered, leaning between the bars to look down. Stairs at the other end of the room, but rather than running for them I hesitated. There was movement below me. People. 

All right, time to snoop. 

Three figures. One in the guard uniform, one wearing a nicely tailored suit, one in a hood and cape. He was talking, voice hoarse and croaking like he had a bad cold. 

“It’s  _ simple!  _ I sold it to you- and now I want to buy it back. What happens if word gets out that you treat your best sponsors like this?”

The suit was trying to smooth the situation over. “Yes, sir, I understand. But you must see that this is a delicate procedure. We can’t just cancel the auction- the guests are  _ here. _ ”

“You absolutely can! You-,” he stopped and started coughing, shrugging off the Suit’s hand when he tried to help. “I’m  _ fine.  _ Get me my Soul and I’ll be even better.”

Something about him. That voice, that stoop to the shoulders, that cough-

Oh fuck. The cough. I knew that cough. He was the other agent- the one who’d come to my office with Sasha. K? Yeah, that was right- Agent K with his helium allergy. Nureyev’s handler, who had-

Who had separated from me and Sasha to go and meet with MacMarn. 

But- no. Okay. Because MacMarn had been dead before then. The receptionist at the Core had said his floor had been in lockdown since the day before Dark Matters came calling me. 

So maybe K had broken into MacMarn’s office to investigate, found his body, taken a DNA sample? It would have been easy enough to hear that the auction was on, Dark Matters had to have contacts in the upper crust of Hyperion. He could have been following that trail by himself. 

No, there was something wrong about that. Something too complicated. Something I wasn’t seeing- and I was so fucking close I could taste it-

“Hey! You were right! Someone’s up there!” 

The shout came from behind me. I turned in time to spot a guard, then two more. Charging at me, blasters raised. Crap. 

One I could take- but three? In  _ these  _ shoes? Nothing for it but to run. And up on a walkway, just one direction to go. 

So obviously I jumped over the side. 

It wasn’t a graceful drop but I pulled myself together in time to roll. Then I was on my feet and running again- main priority was getting out of the light, hiding. Difficult given the dress, but-

A laser bolt hit the ground by my feet. _Hell._

Good thing about a junkyard like this? Lots of weird looking crap. I dived under a folded piece of metal- maybe part of the decayed roof- and waited, caught my breath as quietly as I could. Cracked my neck and felt a twinge down my arm. Must have rammed my shoulder, maybe twisted the elbow, when I’d jumped from the walkway. A great way to make a great night even better. 

And right on time, here they came.

“Did you see him?!”

“Yeah- yeah, I think so!”

Then boots, running. Getting closer, stopping nearby. Hell. Hopefully they’d think I’d kept going. 

“He’s gone! We’ve fucking lost him.”

All right. Finally, a win. 

“Crap, Misa’s going to be pissed. What do we do?”

Second voice sighed. “This isn’t multiple choice, Rebecca.” A radio crackle. “Hey, Misa- yeah- sorry. He got away. Yeah. Look for whoever’s missing a partner and grab them.”

_ Nureyev.  _

Instantly the anger I’d had for him evaporated. What the hell had I been doing?! He was the  _ fucking victim!  _ Why had I wasted time being obstinate and mean? Why hadn’t I agreed that he should go do the sneaking? Why was I-

Nope, save him now, doubt every choice I’d ever made later.

I tugged my mask off, threw it away. I wouldn’t need a secret identity when I was dead, and the stupid thing would get in the way. 

There went the silhouettes of the guards, dark against the lights. They were already climbing back over the stair railings. And then they’d be inside and Nureyev had no idea-

I started sprinting, vaulted the fence, landed hard, charged after them. My heels clanged on the metal and sent it shaking. 

No time for fucking subtle anyway. 

I was already shouting by the time I skidded into the auction.

“OVER HERE!”

And there I was, blinking in the sudden light, facing down thirty rich assholes, too many guards, a whole mess of drones- and the man I really hoped would still tolerate me. 

I looked for him across the crowd. Spotted his dark mask above the rest. I’d never been so glad he was tall. 

Hell- I really, really hoped he’d get that this meant he should run. 

“It’s me! The one you caught back there! The one you  _ should be chasing _ !” I stuck out my arms, gestured to myself, I was already turning and starting to run back the way I’d come- had to give Nureyev time to escape-

“Come  _ fucking get me _ !”

Which would have been more effective if a drone laser hadn’t blasted the doorway over my head and sent a segment of the metal wall crashing into the floor. Blocking my exit and only missing my head by an inch. I suppose I should’ve been grateful for that. 

“Hands up! Then turn around! Slowly!”

Hell.

This has been a terrible, terrible plan. Even compared to everything else tonight. All I could hope for was that when I turned, Nureyev would be gone. If he’d got away-

Well. Nothing else would matter. 

I raised my hands.

“Right! Now slow-  _ gk! _ ”

“We are all going to be very calm. We are going to stop pointing our guns at the nice lady.  _ Now. _ ” 

Double hell. There went everything. 

I completed the turn, lowering my hands as I did. And there he was, Peter Nureyev. Mask on the floor. Knife held at the throat of the head guard. Expression sharp as broken glass. 

Of course he hadn’t run. That idiot. 

“Do as he says!” The guard dropped his own gun. One by one the others copied him. Which still left the drones, still left us stuck in the middle of a stand-off which we really had no chance of winning, still left us without the Soul after this crapshoot of an evening. I guess it’s the thought that counts. 

Nureyev’s eyes met mine across the crowd. 

You can say a lot in two seconds of a shared look; you can say ‘yeah we really messed this up’; you can say you’re sorry; you can say that when it comes down to it- no matter how insurmountable the problems between you are- you wouldn’t have been so stupid to begin with if you hadn’t cared. That the one thing that fucking matters right now is that you’re in this together. 

We didn’t get two seconds. We got one. I think we managed to get most of it across anyway. 

Then the ground started to shake. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously the question here is; does Cecil know that Juno already owns a wedding dress because of a previous terrible relationship? Just how mean is he being??
> 
> I cannot answer that. Altho it would be very stupid of Juno to tell Cecil anything that personal. But then Cecil did know about Ben. But then Ben is probably public knowledge. How deep does the rabbit hole go etcetc
> 
> The only real conclusion is that somewhere out there Buddy has felt an immense sense of kinship and satisfaction, she has found spiritual camaraderie with Cecil as they have both put Juno in big fancy dresses.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologise to anyone reading this who thought it was in any way scientifically sound. if the previous chapters did not dissuade you of this foolhardy notion then the next two deffo will. all i can say is. look. LOOK. the end of season 1 had martians.

Walls falling, roof caving, the metal struts starting to twist as the earth cracked and shifted. Rich people tripping over themselves and screaming and shrieking, drones dropping from the air. I dived forward- just out of the way of collapsing cement. I needed to reach Nureyev before-

“ _Gh-_!” The guard he’d been holding had tried to break free, but Nureyev was faster. He ducked, stabbed the back of his knee, sent him to the ground in a heap. Grabbed his dropped gun and tossed it to me. I caught it just in time to shoot out the leg of the next guy coming up behind him. 

Nureyev met my eye and grinned. God _damn_ I’d missed that. 

“Come on!” I had his hand in mine and we were running. 

And maybe it was the look we’d shared, maybe it was that the simplicity of ‘run or die’ had got us on the same page, maybe it was the adrenaline rush, maybe it was just his smile, but like lightning through my heart-

It was less of a thought than a feeling. This sudden, solid knowledge that at the end of this I’d still be with him. I had no idea how- but I’d save him. Whatever we had to do, this was going to work out. 

Was that optimism, or just part of me telling the rest that I had to focus on right now to have any chance of the tomorrow I wanted? 

Didn’t matter. It worked. 

The tremors were dying down which meant we had maybe three seconds before people started shooting at us. No time to get away, we’d have to duck for cover instead. 

We made it through one of the holes which had opened in the walls, got out into the dark night. As we ran Nureyev yelled to me;

“Are earthquakes common on Mars?!”

“Not this close to Hyperion- ground should be stabilised!”

“Well-” 

Whatever he’d been about to say was cut across by other voices- the guards were coming after us. Shouts of ‘there they are’ and ‘hurry’ and ‘aim for the legs, we want to interrogate them’. Normal stuff. 

“We didn’t cause the earthquake!” Nureyev shouted back. “There might perhaps be _bigger fish to fry_!” 

I dived behind a wall, pulling him along. A wave of laser fire burned the air behind us. 

“All right, all right… Gun has twelve more shots.” I spun the cartridge back in, risked looking over the edge of our hiding place. Managed to see that we’d need a lot more before a stray bolt sent me ducking. “And we’re screwed. Any ideas about the quake?”

Nureyev shrugged. “Maybe some sort of… underground digging thing? Maybe someone else trying to steal the Soul?”

“Does Dark Matters have anything like that?”

He frowned sceptically, then he thought about it and inclined his head. “ Honestly? Probably. Though as I’m in the Subterfuge Department and not a ‘digging thing’ operator, I haven’t heard about them. Why do you think it would be them- us- anyway?”

“Well, your handler’s here.” I risked another look out. The guards were massing but staying back- they must have known we were armed. “He’s the one pretending to be MacMarn.”

“What?” Nureyev stared at me. “My- you mean Agent K?”

“That’s the one.”

“Hell.” His eyes were darkening, down turned and narrowed. I knew that expression- trying to think out a new plan. Failing. “If he’s here and he gets it-,” Nureyev’s voice broke off, he shook his head. “Dark Matters will think it’s evidence that I stole it. They’ll be… unhappy.”

That wasn’t a risk because he wasn’t going back to them. My main concern? If K got the Soul, Dark Matters got the Soul.

“All right.” I breathed through my gritted teeth. “Don’t worry about that. We’re not letting it happen.” 

“Juno- we can’t kill him.”

“Nureyev-”

“He’s just doing his job. And he’s my boss!”

Not arguing this. Not right now. I sighed, “Fine. If we don’t have to, we won’t. But look- we’ll need to move soon.” I kicked off my heels- barefoot on this rubble was bad, but a lot easier than running in six inch stilettos. “That building ahead is where I saw K before- he was talking to the guy in charge. Good place to start. If we can make it to that hole in the wall we have a chance. You ready to go?”

“Wait.” Nureyev hesitated, and we really didn’t have time for that. Thankfully before I could do the Juno Steel special and step all over the moment he hurried on, words coming at a rush; “You expected them to shoot you dead when you ran back into the auction. To provide a warning to me, as well as distract them so I could escape. Which, while very valiant-,” Nureyev broke off, eyes flicking half up to meet mine and then away again, “Having been on that side of the, ah, ‘pointless self sacrifice equation’- well, I’d rather that neither of us resorted to it again. Deal?”

Hell. He really picked the worst times to be all goddamn _sweet._

“Yeah. Deal. We’re both living through this.” More shots. More shouts. I grimaced, settled the gun into my hand. “I’m going to fire a couple of shots as we go, see if I can spook them into firing blind. Count of three?” 

“Count of three.” 

I raised a hand, closed one finger, then another and-

We were already running. I let two laser bolts go, aiming over my own shoulder without looking as we stumbled across the cracked concrete, the ground left rippled from the tremor. Laser blasts burned through the air around us, but we were _almost_ there.

My other hand was holding Nureyev’s again.

Then the second quake started. This one was worse. 

I felt Nureyev’s feet go out from under him, I hit the ground a moment after he did. Another wrench to my injured arm. 

“Are you hurt?!” 

“No- no, just-” 

Screams from the auction hall, then crashing as the laser blasts stopped. Maybe the roof had fallen in. I really didn’t have the energy to feel too bad about that. Especially not if it gave us a chance to get out from under their fire. 

“Come on- we can make it!” 

I pulled Nureyev up and together we dashed the last few feet and through the hole. Collapsed on the other side as the tremors died out again. Nureyev sat up, eyes wide and worried and I could tell he was doing the same thing for me as I was for him- checking for injuries. But somehow we’d both made it without getting shot. 

“Fuck.” Nureyev whispered, he licked his lips. “That was- that was very close.” 

“Yeah.” My head was ringing, I shook it, tried to clear the noise. “Yeah, I know. Let’s-”

“Yes.” He moved to stand, but then halfway there, knees still bent- he froze. Gestured past me to the wall on the other side. “Juno, look.”

There was a figure there. Crumpled against the wall. I stared at him, recognised the suited guy from before. So where was Agent K-?

Oh. 

Okay. There he was. 

Hunched on the floor, facing away from us. The cement around him was cracked- the cracks spreading out from him like a spider web, like he’d been the epicenter of some huge explosion. For a moment I thought he had; that the Soul had been faulty, had detonated all by itself and solved the problem, but K was moving. Slowly. His back undulating, his shoulders shifting. 

K was digging _,_ bare handed, into the ground. 

Watching him filled me with a sense of wrongness, with the instinct to run. 

I only managed to swallow it when Nureyev tugged on my arm- he was gesturing toward the suit again. I got his meaning. We moved toward him together, staying quiet and crouched in the shadows. Up close I could see that he’d been thrown with enough force to break his ribs, maybe his back. I thought for a second he was already dead, but then he let out a pained gasp, he twitched. “What-?”

I shushed him, “ _Quiet._ What the hell happened?”

“Who are-?”

“We’re… we’re here to help?” I looked at Nureyev, his eyes were fixed on the hunched shape of Agent K. “Just tell us what happened.”

That was enough for the suit- he was low on choices. He blinked weakly and started to talk. “Someone… someone came in. On the walkway. Spying…” 

Hell. Another nice job from Detective Steel. 

“What then?”

“MacMarn got- must’ve got spooked. He- he attacked me. Got the Soul out of its case- it- it _moved._ It attached to him and he-“

The suit shuddered, his eyes went suddenly wide and horrified. 

“It moved?” Nureyev hissed at me. “Could they move?”

“Not the ones I saw. They- they took a lot longer to attach to people too. They-”

And I was suddenly back in that dark time, sitting and waiting for the Soul to attach, sitting terrified in the dark and knowing it was the only fucking way and so scared for myself and Rita and for the whole fucking city-

“Juno.” Nureyev had touched my arm, just below my shoulder. He was looking at me, frowning, worried. When I met his eyes he smiled and it was _so_ fucking gentle. God, you could jump to Phobos with someone smiling at you like that. “It’s okay. It won’t happen again.”

I nodded. I believed him. “Yeah. Yeah. Just-“

We felt the tremor together. Nureyev grabbed my elbow, pulled me under the relative protection of a supportive metal beam. 

As we went I caught sight of K. 

The quakes hadn’t been quakes. Hadn't been some underground digger either.

This landing site had provided Hyperion with supplies. It had, back then, needed electricity. The power lines were still lying dormant and unused under the ground. 

K had been digging them up. 

He had one in his hands now- this tree-trunk thick plastic wrapped mass of wires. 

And he was draining it. 

That sounds weird even to say. How the hell did I know what he was doing? I’d never seen a man... _eat electricity_ before. But- 

His body was contorting, the cable was jumping, sparks were flying thick in the air. I could see the current in the way his shape twisted with power surges, in the way his skin was burning. I could see that the force of the electricity being sucked into him was shaking the earth, shaking the buildings around us. 

I knew he should be dead. 

“Yeah.” I murmured to Nureyev, “The other Souls definitely didn’t do that.”

He let out a breath. “Juno. We might have to… rethink what I said about killing him.”

“Oh no.”

“You don’t have to sound happy about it.”

I didn’t reply. No point, I’d wanted to kill something Dark Matters related since I’d seen Nureyev in the shipping container. And the way K was looking? We couldn’t have saved him if we’d wanted to. The only reason he was still walking was the Soul- nothing alive could stay that way after all that electricity. 

Then the crackling-frying-sparking stopped and K dropped the cable. His head snapped back, he let out a scream. “They keep _cutting it off!_ ”

He stood. Hunched over. Electricity crackled up and down his arms, from his head to his shoulders. What the _hell_ was happening? What the hell was _any_ of this?! What was-

“I can _feel._ You. I can feel your _brain’s electricity_ through the air. I _know_ it.” K turned around, still stooped, but there was a crack of a smile somewhere in the shadow. “ _Agent Nureyev._ ”

Well. Fuck. 

Nureyev froze. I stared at him. He turned slowly to me, and fuck, I knew what he was going to say and I wanted to argue but- 

But there really wasn’t any other way. We couldn’t just rush in. Not with K able to throw people hard enough to break them, not with him turned into a goddamn super conductor. 

“He knows I’m here.” Nureyev whispered, and his voice was entirely calm. “You get as close as you can and use the audio file. I’ll distract him.”

Hell. 

“Be careful.”

Nureyev squeezed my hand, and was gone. 

_Hell._

I closed my eyes, I leaned my head against the wall. I needed to move, but part of me was so fucking scared that Nureyev would be dead in three seconds. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t make myself _breathe-_

“Agent King. I apologise for saying this, but you really don’t… look entirely well.” 

He sounded so different. Deferential. And that hurt too, but he was talking and that meant he wasn’t dead. I could move. I had to move. 

I started along by the wall, if I could get behind K I could risk going in toward him. How close did I need to be? This wasn’t anything like the other Souls, and all that extra power… They’d run using brain electricity before. What did it mean that this one could suck it out of Hyperion too? If the phone didn’t work-

“ _Making_ jokes? You’re _pathetic._ Sneaking in here. Trying to _steal_ the Soul. From _me?_ ” 

K’s voice was broken into syllables, fractured like every sound was an effort to remember. 

I couldn’t stop myself- I looked back at them, saw the hulk of K facing against a Nureyev who’d never seemed so tiny. 

“Leon, please.” Nureyev raised his hands. “I promise you, I’m not here to steal anything. The Soul has attached itself to you- you know how dangerous that is. We need to-”

“ _Not here to steal anything?!_ Said the _thief!”_ And K was on him. He’d jumped, he’d lept through the air, he’d swept out a hand and grabbed Nureyev by the neck. Lifted him so high that his feet were dangling. “Said the _traitor_ who _owes us his_ life! I _know what you did!_ Is this your _gratitude?!_ After I-?”

Which was when I ran at him, the phone already playing. 

A lot of things happened then, and they happened so quickly that afterwards I was left trying to sort out the order in my head. 

K screamed- not angry this time. He was in pain. It was a mad, mechanical howl, and now that I’d seen him hurt Nureyev I wish it had lasted ten times longer. But at the same time he was spinning round, he was dropping Nureyev and he was grasping out a hand towards me-

But I was too far away for him to reach. 

And then I wasn’t. 

The thing that whipped toward me wasn’t a hand, not anymore, and it wasn’t attached to an arm. It was a column of human meat- a tumorous tentacle, all skin and muscle wrapped up together into a flesh rope. I had maybe a quarter of a second to stare, then it hit me like a truck. 

Dashed me down, sent me skidding hard across the ground. There was a fast, sharp blast of pain and-

And Nureyev was sitting over me. His hands on my face and hell, _that_ was a memory. 

I coughed. Tasted blood. Really fucking hoped I’d just bit my tongue and not cracked a tooth because fucking dental bills would cost more than I was worth-

Nureyev. Still alive. 

I sat up like someone had flicked a switch. Grabbed for him. Found him. And there he was, sitting an inch from me. Dirty, bleeding from a graze down his head, his eyes wide and dark and scared and fuck, had he been _crying?_

There was a burn round his neck in the shape of a hand print. 

He shook his head, he swallowed like he'd tried and failed to find the right words, and then he was kissing me. 

Pulling me in toward him, shoving me down into the concrete. Biting me. I grasped back for him- his shirt, his stupid cape, his waist- I needed him close. I needed-

 _Fuck,_ that hurt. Stupid arm. 

“What?! What- what is it?!” Nureyev pulled back, breathing hard and panicked. I don’t even know how he knew- he looked like he was worried he’d broken me. 

I tried to steady myself, to steady him. “Nothing, just- just got into a big fucking fight with your asshole boss.” I pulled a smile. Which also hurt. 

Hell. Agent K. 

I forced myself to sit up, to think, shifting Nureyev back as I did. He stayed holding on to me. “What happened?”

“You weren’t breathing.” 

I stared at him. “What? I-”

“He- he must have shocked you when he hit you.” Nureyev shook his head again, he was trembling. “I… it was just for a few seconds. I started compressions and you- you came back. And you’re okay? Are you okay?”

I put my hand over his. It was still resting on my chest. “Heart beating. I’m fine. I am. You saved me.” 

And after a moment of staring into my eye Nureyev seemed to accept that, but his shoulders stayed trembling. 

All right. All right. I’d died. I’d had worse days. 

“What about K?”

“I don’t- hell.” Nureyev rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. He looked- he didn’t look _human_ , Juno. He was moving like- like a spider or something. He just ran after you played the file. I think it hurt him. I- I don’t know if it stopped him.”

“What was happening to him? He was-”

“Changing. Could the other Souls do that to their hosts?”

“I…” I thought of Mick, how it had piloted his body in ways he shouldn’t have been able to move. But that hadn’t meant growing tentacles. Just- just being stronger, able to hold himself on walls and ceilings. Things that human bodies shouldn’t do. “I don’t know.”

“Could it use the electricity somehow?” Nureyev stared down, his eyes wide and unfocused. “To change the host body it would need to create cells, muscle and bone, and you need energy for that. Perhaps it's using the electricity instead of food?" He shook his head, he started to laugh. It was short and broken. "That is, unfortunately, where my rudimentary knowledge of biology ends.” Looking up, he sent me a vague, pained smile and his voice started to waiver _._ “I broke into a scientific conference once. Spent three hours as Doctor Omo Lord, hobnobbing with biohackers. Forgot all the textbooks I’d memorised the moment I left.” 

Hell, Nureyev was _babbling_. 

“Sounds like high school.” I hesitated, told myself to get over it and- careful to avoid the burn on his neck- I cupped my hand around the side of his face. “Are you okay?”

For a moment Nureyev was startled. Then he closed his eyes, he stilled. “I would very much like it if you didn’t die again, Juno.” 

Any emotionally mature guy would hear that and say something sincere back. But I was me, and I fumbled. Pulled a smile I regretted as soon as I felt it. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Juno.” His eyes opened, not angry- just staring. As intense as I’d ever seen him. “Don’t joke. Destroying the Soul is… so important- important for everyone in the galaxy.” He shook his head, but he didn’t break eye contact. “It was the most important thing. Until you stopped breathing.”

Oh. 

“Nureyev-”

“Don’t. You don’t have to. Just take care of yourself.” He took a deep breath. Steadied himself. “And we’ve wasted far too much time sitting here as it is.”

“Well…” All right, game plan. “We need to find K. Play the file again. Louder, or closer, I guess.” I scratched the back of my head. Looked for the phone and found it by my foot. Picked it up and-

The screen was cracked into a thousand pieces. When they fell away, smoke leaked out. 

Nureyev stared at me. I stared back. 

And up above us there was a roar. Engines, struggling to start. Ancient, ancient engines, being stitched back together by a super-charged super computer that looked like a man. 

I found my eyes turning skyward. I saw what I knew I would see. There it was, through the wall-less side of the building; the rocket was preparing for liftoff. 

We’d lost. We’d fucking-

Wait. No. 

Because this was going to goddamn end with me and Nureyev together. Because it was going to work out. Because I was going to fucking _make_ it _._

Because the pieces had clicked together and I suddenly knew exactly how I was going to save him. 

I stood up. My legs were just a little unsteady. “Those things- those old rockets- they take a while to launch, right? No way he can make them go that much faster.”

“Yes? But Juno- the phone-”

“Yeah. Busted. But Souls can’t do anything without a host.” I flexed my painful shoulder. Stuck down a hand for Nureyev. “So. Let’s go kill your boss.”

Nureyev choked. It might have been a laugh.

Then he shook his head, he was smiling. And finally- he took my hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> agent k's been having his own little private adventure this whole time and it was probably really fun and chill and then THIS happens
> 
> Also y’all knew I was gonna Chekhov’s gun that rocket right


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Home of Bad Science. Sorry science.  
> Also guess what if you like fics where Dark Matters break Petey head over here https://archiveofourown.org/works/24183910/chapters/58248274. I PROMISE I DID NOT STEAL THIS IDEA however it's like really good and you should all go read it.

We ran together through the mess of abandoned buildings and rusting metal, aiming for the rocket’s hulk.

“The Soul is controlling K- but why is it trying to escape? Why was it doing those things to him? They were meant as population control methods, weren’t they?”

“The Souls are- they’re not really AI, but they like- they have survival protocols or whatever. They like- they know they need to be active to do their ‘job’, so I guess us hurting it triggered like- like the flight instinct or whatever?”

Nureyev frowned sceptically. 

“Hey- look! My secretary explained it to me, and she made it make sense!”

“I didn’t say anything!” Like he’d needed to. 

But really, hell, he could have thrown whatever insult he wanted. I was just glad he’d recovered from seeing me deadish. Seeing him hurt like that-

Well, it made me more eager to not end up in a cold ditch. 

“That rocket must be centuries old. Even if it gets into the air, it won’t be able to exit the atmosphere- it's so rusted, the pressure would make the engines explode!”

“Doesn’t have to. If it can get somewhere else on Mars- somewhere capable of producing more Souls, well.”

I saw Nureyev set his jaw. Run faster. 

We’d almost arrived at the rocket’s base. Up close it was… really, really fucking big. Like 200-feet-tall big. The whole huge thing was shaking, shaking hard enough for it to reach the metal scaffolding which surrounded it. 

I exchanged a look with Nureyev. “Elevator?” 

He smiled flatly back. "That would be lovely, wouldn't it?"

I looked up at the rocket; from the bottom it was hard to make out any details, but if I stared hard there was what looked like a platform 60, 70 feet up. Maybe a way inside. Fuck- I hoped it was a way inside. 

“Juno- come here, I’ve found… something.” 

A length of ancient metal rope, dangling down from somewhere high. Nureyev was testing the strength, pulling hard on the end. Whatever was holding it up, stayed up. “We tie the end around ourselves. Gather and attach it to the scaffolding as we go.”

I nodded, let him tie it round me first. It made sense- my corset would take some of the impact if he fell, if I fell there’d be nothing to protect him. 

“Wait.” The laser gun had been wasted when K had shocked me, so I dumped it on the ground. Then I paused. Which was stupid, because given everything that was happening being embarrassed was also stupid. 

So I told myself not to be as I stooped, grabbed the bottom of my skirts, and ripped a thigh high tear into them. 

When I straightened up, Nureyev was smirking. 

“It’s for mobility!”

“And it looks fantastic.”

Jerk. I rolled my eye and didn’t try too hard to hide my smile. 

It was the last I’d have the chance to pull for a while. 

I don’t like heights. Almost falling into the Core had been one thing- but in the end it had been a few minutes of dangling, a few minutes of abject terror. And most importantly- it had been an accident. 

It was completely different, completely worse, to climb that scaffolding. To deliberately put one hand above the other, to push my aching shoulder even when it couldn’t reach higher than my head without making me nauseous. To keep going and going and going while the rocket shook and shook beside us. 

The metal was cold, and getting colder. The oxygen was thin. The terraforming had never entirely stopped the Martian wind from howling like a banshee, and now it whipped at the flimsy layers of my skirt so hard I thought they might tear. And the view-

Hyperion, neon bright, everywhere else dark as nothing. 

But I still kept looking down. Because when I looked down I got to see him. 

Nureyev climbed like a pro. Spidery arms and legs moving mechanically. Occasionally he’d turn upward, and if I got lucky the timing would be right and our eyes would meet and I’d feel strong enough to climb the next few feet. 

So it was slow and terrible but I could do it. I could keep doing it. I could keep doing it for thirty feet, then forty, then fifty and I would have managed for the rest too-

Then a laser hit the scaffolding an inch from my eye.

I’ve been shot at a lot, and hit only a little less. I don’t get jumpy when bolts are flying. I just generally know when it’s about to happen. This time, fifty feet up in the freezing air? More unexpected. 

I yelped, I let go, I fell, and the rope caught me with a jolt so hard it left my head spinning. I had a moment to take in the wheeling empty space around me and then, thank god-

“Juno!” Nureyev reaching out for me, grabbing me, pulling me back to the scaffolding, back beside him. “Come on-!”

My hands were back on the metal. I had something to hold onto. I could breathe again. 

For two seconds before another laser bolt blasted the beam, sent sparks and rust flying. 

“It’s the drones!” Nureyev had managed to half turn, he was holding on by one arm, wind whipping out his cape. I followed his eyes and saw them: maybe ten of them, huge and all flying toward us. The closest one just a few feet away and already reloading for its next blast- the others buzzing in the distance, their blinking lights the only way to judge how long we had till they were here. 

I wondered weakly if it was K- if the Soul had jacked him up enough to connect to them, or if the guards hadn’t given up as completely as we’d hoped. But hell, it didn’t matter why they were here- they  _ were here _ . 

All right, plan, plan, pla-

There was a movement beside me. Nureyev had jumped. 

If I close my eye I can still see it. Him. Frozen in mid-air, cape flying, teeth gritted, arms outstretched. Backlit by Hyperion and all of the planet spread beneath him. 

The end of the rope trailing from his waist, broken off messily where he’d cut himself free from me. 

I probably shouted something really dumb. That part I don’t remember so well. 

Next thing Nureyev had landed, half on the drone, half off. He was climbing on, he was fighting its efforts to throw him away, he was feeding the end of the rope into the fans-

It was starting to stutter. The engines were choking. Failing. About to drop out of the sky. 

I didn’t have time to think about it. I’d already kicked myself away from the side of the scaffolding, I was swinging out in the air toward him, the tattered dress trailing behind me, I was reaching for him and shouting and grasping and I wasn’t going far enough, I wouldn’t reach him and then at the last moment-

Nureyev looked up, smiled, and his hand reached back. 

It closed around mine and for a moment we hung together in the air. 

Then gravity cracked down and I was jolted back into the downswing. Nureyev’s weight making my shoulder scream, the dead-engined drone still attached to him, the scaffolding coming up fast-

We hit it with a  _ thunk  _ that went all the way to my bones _.  _

I was scrambling to hold on, to get him holding on. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t breathe-

I could still yell at him. 

“ _ You were the fucking one who said no more stupid self sacrifice! _ ”

Nureyev was safe- back level with me. He was messing with the drone, but when I shouted I saw him smile and  _ that would not stand.  _

“You were the one- you set that fucking perameter and then you go freebase spelunking into a drone?! What the fucking fucking-!?” 

He looked up. And the bastard really was fucking smiling now, all sharp teeth and cape in the wind, he thought he was so fucking great-

“Juno, that wasn’t self sacrifice.” He leaned across the distance, so close I could feel the warmth from his breath. Pressed the huge gun he’d cut out of the drone into my chest and free hand. Pulled back far enough for our eyes to meet, for me to see the glint as his glasses reflected the distant Hyperion neon. “That was me trusting you to save me.”

Oh. 

“That’s-,” I scowled, completely goddamn deflated. Stupid Nureyev and his stupid smart-handsome-smiling mouth. “That’s a good fucking line.”

“I try.” He shrugged, endlessly smug. He still had the drone’s body, was holding it in the hand that wasn’t attached to the scaffolding, working it down his arm so he could climb without dropping it. “Now we have a weapon, and we have a shield. Shall we proceed?”

We proceeded. 

And it was fucking tough. 

Two more drones at once, I figured out how to fire the gun in time to get the first- but if it hadn’t been for Nureyev leaning across my back to block the second, it would have blasted me through the spine. He grinned at me, then, hell-

“Nureyev! Your three o’clock!”

He grunted, turned just in time to catch the shot. I leaned out behind him and fired on it. The drone exploded, plunged, burning, out of the sky. Four down.

Whenever there was a chance- any tiny gap in the attacks- we kept climbing. Who knew how long there was till this thing started launching? And if it launched-

Well. It would be bad. We needed to get K first, we needed to stop him before he started. 

“Juno,  _ right-!” _

Hell. I dodged, leaned over backwards to shoot. Missed. Had just enough time to shoot again. “Cover me!”

Nureyev did. Of course he did. Sparks hit the shield- a second later and it would have been my face. I ducked, I fired again. 

Last two arrived at the same time. Nureyev cursed, he twisted his arm to shield us both. I leaned up to fire out- hit one- leaned down to get the next and-

“Juno Steel, able to shoot drones out of the sky one-handed, and one-eyed!” Nureyev shouted over the wind as he grinned at me, the last drone exploding behind him. “You should enter the Martian Olympics!”

“They tend to involve less sharp shooting and more blood loss.” But I was smiling, hiding it in my shoulder. “Come on!”

We still had a way to go. Nureyev didn’t look too bad, but I could see that the effort was getting to him in the set of his jaw, I could hear it in his breathing. And my shoulder ache had spread, had extended all the way to my elbow- putting pressure on my palm sent jolts of pain all the way up. 

By the time we made it to the platform I was ready to collapse- and I did. Shaking as hard as the rocket, choking on deep breaths of the low-oxygen air. My arm was fucking burning- and I realised that we’d need to find another way down. I couldn’t climb it.

But whatever, a problem for later. Nureyev scrambled over, face pale, got me up and to the hatch. 

Which we had no way of opening.

“Not a problem, not a problem-,” Nureyev already had my knife in his hand- was twitching it into the gap, “Come on-”

Something inside the rocket churned, the engine kicking it up a notch. Nureyev gritted his teeth, winced and turned his hand-

The door opened with a pneumatic hiss and we fell inside. I slammed it closed again, slumped back on the ground beside Nureyev. The air was stale, it tasted of rust, and it was still too thin to breathe comfortably. But god- we were out of the wind and that was a fucking relief.

I took a few deep lungfuls, I gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulder and told myself to get over it. Finally, sort of steadied, I looked around. 

We were in some sort of hall, all ancient white metal panels and handles down the walls. Of course- this thing predated decent artificial gravity, they’d have needed the handles to pull themselves around. Another useless factoid from high school. The space was lit by the emergency lights- narrow fluorescent channels running along the floor and ceiling, bright enough to see right in front of us but not much more. 

And one other thing. 

“Juno, look at this.” 

It was a wire- a lot of wires- red, spreading out over the floor and walls. Coming from somewhere unseen in the shadows and burrowing in between the metal panels. Nureyev gave me a worried glance. “Do they look a little like… veins to you?”

They did. I shuddered. “Don’t touch them.” 

Nureyev scoffed but I heard the fear through his confidence. “I shall try to restrain myself.”

Without discussing it we started to follow them back to their source, stepping carefully over and around as we went. The further we got, the more they joined together- became thick and tangled. Like fleshy tree roots. 

They led us down the hall, in through a doorway, into what looked like a control room; all ancient computers and tech panels. A few of the monitors were on- more of the wires running into them- displaying flickering binary or aged schematics. We picked our way past. 

And then, finally, K. 

Slumped on a heap on the floor. His head and neck jutting out of a red mass of more wire-veins, all sprouting like roots from the raw sore which had been his chest. Eyes open, mouth open. Breathing. 

Nureyev made a soft, cut-off, gasping noise and stepped past me. Crouched beside him. 

“Hey- be careful-,” I moved to pull him back, but he shook his head. He was staring at K’s face with an expression I couldn’t read. 

“Do you think he’s… aware?”

I shrugged. This was- not what I’d expected. More difficult than what I’d expected. It’s one thing to kill a guy in a fight, it’s something else to... whatever this was. Mercy kill? Can you do a mercy kill if the asshole doesn’t deserve mercy?

“I mean if I was him… I wouldn’t want to be.”

Nureyev didn’t reply. 

Fuck, my sympathy had its limits. I didn’t have it in me to care about the asshole who’d approved his brainwashing, who’d literally just tried to kill us both- hell, who  _ had  _ killed me. 

But I cared about Nureyev. 

I sighed. 

“Are you okay? Is there… Can I help?”

“I’m fine.” He answered in a too-quiet voice. Then, even more quietly. “He didn’t deserve this.”

Well. Matter of opinion. “Do you want me to do it?”

“I feel like you’d employ a little more… gusto than it requires. Though- thank you, Juno.” I caught a twist at the edge of his mouth, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

"You know he might like... heal, right? Just uh... something to consider?"

"Good point. If so, I'll have to be persistent." 

He took out the knife, twisted his fingers to the perfect hold, and slashed neatly through K’s carotid artery. Blood pooled out. After a moment the flesh around K's neck started to knit back together, but Nureyev gritted his teeth and cut deeper, cut again. Kept at it. 

And eventually, the breathing slowed. Stopped. 

Nureyev closed K’s eyes. 

Then the floor lunged us off our feet. I landed with a gasp and then as I moved to sit up a bright, bright,  _ bright  _ burst of pain from my arm. My vision whited out, it came back slowly, brought a fresh headache and a nauseous swinging in my gut. 

And there was Nureyev, crouched beside me. “Juno- what’s wrong?! What happened?”

“My arm- it’s… I don’t know. Hurts. It’s fine.”

“Juno.” He glared at me, started feeling from my elbow to my shoulder with his cool, precise fingers. Stopped. “Juno your shoulder is  _ broken.  _ You climbed up here- you were shooting at those drones- and it was  _ broken?! _ ” 

I gave a half shrug. “Come on, it’s not like- like the bone’s like- sticking out. It’s fine. Anyway, we need to get out of here-”

The floor shook again. And something else this time- pressure. The ear popping sort. Fuck. 

Nureyev was a step ahead of me, he darted over to the closest working monitor. Turned back to me with a sickly pale face, voice quiet and. “We’ve launched. Eight minutes till we leave the atmosphere.”

“But there’s no fucking way this rocket can make it into space!” I scrambled up- ignoring the way the motion sent jolts through my shoulder- ran to join him. Fuck fuck fuck-

“I killed K.” Nureyev was staring at the counter. “If he was acting as- as the central control… if the Soul was relying on him as a… a processor...”

“Then maybe this is it acting without thinking. Like, like death throes?” Fuck! I’d been trying so fucking hard to be optimistic, to save him, and now I’d fucking ruined it all. I slumped over, leaning on my elbows. “I should have thought of that- I should have stopped you and thought of something else! Now we’re going to-”

“Juno!” Nureyev spun on his heel, there was a sudden wild, sharp, look in his eyes, “You are  _ not  _ going to fucking die! I am  _ refusing _ ! What do we have? I’m checking the schematics for escape pods- and we’ve got no escape pods. What else? Can we- could we separate the engines? Slow the rest of the rocket somehow?”

And I was staring. Hell, sometimes the guy you love just gets really enthusiastic about not dying and you don’t have time to do anything about it but you get a lump in your throat and-

And hell! He wasn’t getting to die! He was  _ getting saved.  _

“Okay. We’re in an ancient rocket held together by an asshole computer chip and a bunch of veins.” I pressed my good hand down on the console- tried to  _ think _ . What did we have, what did we have-

“I- I have an idea. It’s like  _ really  _ fucking bad though.” 

“Is it better or worse than exploding at the edge of the atmosphere?”

“Yeah, good point. Come on!”

I grabbed him by the arm- and winced, grabbed him with my other hand instead. Started running.

“These old rocket shuttles have like- like  _ gigantic  _ parachutes! To slow the landing! They were built into the external walls, but they had to be accessible from the inside, so we can’t take the engines off but we can get to it and- what?”

“How do you know that?!”

“High school history elective! First time it’s ever been useful!”

“God, you’re smart.” He looked over at me, smiling, and I rolled my eye.

“Don’t say that yet- we’ve got to find like oxygen tanks or something too. We won’t be able to breathe out there.” 

“Oh! Those space suits! The ones they used to have with the big helmets!” Nureyev gestured around his head with his free hand. 

“That’s- that’s a really good idea. Suits would keep us protected too!”

We’d reached the bottom room of the shuttle. Circular, containing ancient metal crates, a bunch of trash. One side of the room had a large panel across the floor, marked with a diagram which looked sort of like an umbrella, but also sort of like what I really hoped it was- a big ass parachute. 

“Okay- I’ll get it, the shuttle exit should be through there- see if they have any of those suits and we can-!”

“Got it!” Nureyev dashed away. 

Thank god the panel hadn’t rusted. I was able to get it open, to drag out the tightly packed parachute. It was gigantic- only way to carry it was slung across my back, held there by my good arm. I struggled after Nureyev, found him in the shuttle exit room; musty as the rest of them, one wall entirely occupied by a huge vacuum sealed door. 

“Here.” I dumped it onto the floor. “You got some of those suit things?”

“Yes, but- Juno-”

“You need to work the parachute. We can tie it to us, but you’ll need to open it once we’re clear, you’ll need to steer it so we don’t fucking land on Hyperion. My arm-”

“Juno!” He was staring at me desperately. “I found suits. But only one of the oxygen tanks is still intact. The others- the valves say they’re empty. They must have leaked, or- or cracked or something.”

Hell. 

Okay. Obvious solution.

“You take the one with the tank.”

He scoffed. “Please.”

“Nureyev, you have two healthy arms, and I don’t. If I’m not strong enough and I can’t control the parachute we’ll be screwed anyway. I’ll wear one of the busted suits- there’ll still be some air in it-”

“You can’t ask me to do that!” His voice was a snarl. “Juno, I would never- I would  _ never  _ allow you to sacrifice yourself for me- you are worth so,  _ so  _ much more than-”

And I couldn’t listen to that. I stepped forward, covered his mouth with my hand- a move I’d never have the confidence for if we weren’t two minutes from death-by-burning- and smiled at him. 

“This isn’t me sacrificing myself. This is me trusting you to save me.”

Nureyev’s eyes widened then narrowed. He said, with feeling, “Oh- _fuck_ you, Juno.” 

“Hey-,” I raised my hands and allowed myself a moment of smugness, “I try.”

We pulled the suits on in a mad rush, me forcing the skirt down one pant leg, Nureyev tearing off his cape. He handed me my helmet. Lingered with it held between us. 

Leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine. “Slow, deep breaths. Hold them for as long as you can.”

And hell, it might have been my last chance. I kissed him, gently, just barely. Pulled back with a smile. He didn’t return it. I didn’t blame him. My timing’s always sucked.

When our helmets were fixed on I helped Nureyev tie the parachute to his back, leaving the emergency release cord where he could reach it. Then we used the rest of the rope chain to tie ourselves together. Facing each other, my arms free so I could hold onto him- not that that would do much good.

Fuck- if I let myself think about it-

Well. This wasn’t going to be great. 

Nureyev pressed the release button on the door- another pneumatic hiss as the valves compacted, and then it was opening, the pressure already pulling at us. A glimpse of Mars, miles below, Hyperion tiny and bright in the great shadowy stretch. I was terrified- beyond terrified. I was standing on the edge of a void, about to jump. There was nothing but fear left of me. 

And then he looked down at me through the dark glass of his helmet, and he kept looking. Even when the suction caught us and pulled us out into the wind-blasted sky, his eyes stayed steady. 

I lost track of everything but them in the whirling, spinning chaos on the other side- just him and me and the gravity. We fell for a long time like that, over and over and fucking over and I laced my hands together behind his back and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. 

Then Nureyev pulled the emergency release cord and it was like being full-body punched by a city block. 

I couldn’t help it- I choked and started coughing, knew that every desperate breath was using up oxygen I didn’t have. Wanted to be sick as the world was jolted upright, as I suddenly had an idea of what was up and what was down, as the huge mass of the parachute opened above us-

But Nureyev was still meeting my eye. Staring down at me, barely visible through the dark double layer of our helmets and the night. I held on to that. Forced myself to breathe. 

Because it was still just us, drifting in the dark, battered by the wind, hanging on a thread. Me tied tight to him, him tied tight to me. What couldn’t we survive? 

Then something bright- blinding bright- suddenly above us. I turned to look as he did and we saw it; the rocket hitting the atmosphere, the engines compacting, the whole goddamn thing burning, exploding into ash and metal, thin as burnt paper. 

Nureyev smiled, first up at the rocket, then down at me. It was such a simple fucking joyful look- a real, real smile, his eyes huge and shining. And hell, I was smiling too. We’d done it. We’d fucking done it. And we were still alive.

He leaned forward and his helmet touched mine with a gentle  _ clink.  _ I tightened my arms around him, tightened them till my broken shoulder ached. I didn’t care. 

We’d done it. 

And then-

Then my breath started to hitch. More and more, I couldn’t catch it, I couldn’t catch it-

Nureyev could see what was happening, I watched his eyes, his growing panic. But what could he do? Nothing- he couldn’t let go of the parachute, he couldn’t even stop steering it to hold me. He couldn’t, he couldn’t-

I was losing myself. I was passing out. Choking and choking and fuck he’d think it was his fault. He’d blame himself, he’d-

No. He’d told me he wouldn’t let me die. I trusted that. I trusted him. Even as the darkness folded in over the edges of my vision, I trusted him. 

He'd save me, and I'd save him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said this in a reply to a previous comment but the entire reason Juno was in a big fancy dress was so he could do some awesome stunts in it. Hope this chapter delivered. If not then just pretend he was like constantly doing back flips. 
> 
> Also the only science i will defend in this chapter is breaking your arm and not realising until you make it like a hundred times worse. I have done this twice.
> 
> ALSO ALSO I ESTABLISHED THAT JUNO KNEW OF THE BIG PARACHUTES TWO CHAPTERS AGO SO THAT MAKES IT FINE AND EVERYTHING HERE EXCELLENTLY FORESHADOWED AND NOT AT ALL PULLED OUT OF MY ASS /s


	14. Chapter 14

You know those bad headaches? I’m talking like cheese-grater-behind-the-eyes bad. Like  _ bad  _ bad. 

That’s what woke me up. 

It was bad enough that for a second, just a second, I forget to worry about where I was. 

Just a fucking second though. Then-

I choked, coughed, crawled my way back to full consciousness. Found myself lying on a bed which was way too clean to be mine.  _ Medicinal  _ clean. And I wearing an oxygen mask-

Fuck. I was in fucking hospital. 

I struggled upright, thrashing against the sheets- or trying to thrash. One of my wrists was in a fucking handcuff-

“Christ, Juno. Stop before you dislocate something.”

I turned so fast it left me dizzy. With my vision blurred- even though I’d already heard her voice- the sight of a tall figure in a dark suit gave me a moment of goddamn hope. 

Then the moment was gone and I was alone in a room with Sasha Wire. 

Alone in a hospital room, handcuffed to a bed. While she stood over me and glared. 

Well. Only one sensible thing to do. 

“What the  _ fuck  _ have you done with him?! If you’ve- if you’ve touched him- if you’ve  _ touched  _ him, Sasha, I’m gonna rip your fucking head off!”

She crossed her arms. 

“I’m not kidding! I saw what you fucking monsters did- I saw the damn file! How could you- you know, after everything, I thought there was still like- like a fucking  _ crumb  _ of the person I knew left in you! Guess we can add that to the list of ‘Juno’s dumb mistakes’, huh?!”

Sasha narrowed her eyes. She still said nothing. 

And hell, the silent treatment was the one way she could make me even madder. 

“Aren’t you going to fucking say  _ anything? _ ”

“Honestly I figured I’d let you tire yourself out. Seems like the easiest way to get through this. You want to tell me I’m a piece of shit? Do it. I can wait.”

I glared at her. “Where the hell is he?”

“He’s safe.”

“Fucking sure. Unlock me!  _ Right  _ fucking now!” I jangled the cuff at her, noticing for the first time that the arm it was attached to was in a cast. “Do you want me to break the wrist too?!”

“Nope. But I’ll let you.” She snorted, mocking and hard voiced. “I’m only here because he called me, you know.”

“Yeah because his judgement is pretty fucking impaired right now!” I struggled again, tried to pull at the metal bed bar I was attached to. No luck.”Where is he?!”

Sasha put on a lecturing voice. “You’re at the Hyperion Central Hospital, in a secure room. He called me from here last night- said you were in with oxygen deprivation and that he needed help-”

“I don’t fucking care about my goddamn backstory! What did you do with him?!” And we were back to silence. I yanked the cuff again, hard enough to send pain shooting down my whole arm. I didn’t care. “Sasha, I’m not goddamn messing around here! If you think I’m going to give your psychos a chance to get their hooks into him again-!”

“So what’s your plan, Steel? You find him, you rescue him, then what?”

“Then I get him to someone who can fix what you did to him!”

“You can’t.”

“You don’t get to tell me what I can’t-”

“What we did to him isn’t reversible. Come on Juno, think about it. There're a thousand different ways to brainwash people and most of them aren’t nearly as difficult as surgery. They wanted something which couldn’t be undone. Of course there’s always the chance we just don’t know about it, but…” She sighed, tossed a paper folder onto my bed. “The research seems to have been extensive.”

I stared at it, then her. I shook my head, slowly, forcing comprehension. “What the hell is this?”

Sasha met my eye with an iron stare. “I’m telling you that there’s no fucking way to know if you can get him back the way he was. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not.”

Well. Fuck. 

All right. 

She was still watching me, she moved her head so that the shadows from the window bling covered her eyes and asked, mockingly. “You reconsidering your little romantic happy ending now?”

I stared at her. It took me a moment to find my words. 

“What- you think I’d like- like not fucking care about him because you assholes hurt him?” 

A twitch passed over her face, but hell, she wasn’t getting a chance to talk. 

“It doesn’t matter if he thinks he’s the fucking- the fucking like- like whatever, I’m too angry to think of anything! I’d still save him from you! Fuck, Sasha- he’s  _ grateful  _ for what you did- did you know that?! He thinks you did him a favour by lobotomising him! So yeah- I’m going to find him and I’m going to get him out and I’ll keep him away from you even if I have to dismantle all of Dark Matters to do it! Even if he forgot me all over again, even if he forgot the whole galaxy! I’m not just going to let you have him! Never fucking  _ ever! _ ”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then the side of her mouth creased. “Well. Good.”

Maybe that took the wind out of my sails a little. I sat back, frowning, deflated. “What-?”

“I want you to get him out.”

All right. That was definitely a lie. What was she aiming for here? “Right. Sure. Why the hell would you want me to help him?”

“It’s... “ She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose. “Christ, Juno. You know- you’re the whole reason for me being involved in this mess?”

I snorted incredulously. “Yeah,  _ please  _ tell me how you being a monster is my fault.”

“That’s not what I meant.” 

“So explain it to me.” When she hesitated I rolled my eye, made an obnoxious, dismissive noise. “What, you need time to get your story straight?”

“Juno-,” she sighed again. “Look, this case has been a fucking disaster. Peter- Nureyev- told me what happened. Soul destroyed, an agent dead. Dark Matters are going to be pissed when I tell them-”

What? 

“You... haven’t told them yet?”

“I’ve been putting it off.” Her mouth was a thin, angry, line. “Agents like Nureyev are on permanent probation. After every mission he gets reviewed, and if they don’t like what they hear, they… fine tune him.”

Fuck. 

I started to struggle again, pulling hard on the handcuffs. “Fuck you, Sasha- let me fucking  _ go-! _ ”

“Stop it. I told you, I haven’t reported anything yet.” She looked back over her shoulder, out the window. “When I do… well, they’ll blame him. You think he’s lobotomised now? They’re going to take everything from him. Leave him a weapon they can point in the right direction when they want something nasty done. He- fuck, Juno.” 

Sasha gathered herself. She’d been getting close to showing an emotion there, and for her that was downright unacceptable. When she spoke again her voice was carefully level. “He doesn’t deserve that.”

I did stop. Stared hard at her instead. 

“You care about him.”

Sasha didn’t reply at first. Then, finally;

“I was tangentially connected to the Kanagawa Mask case because of my history with you. I didn’t oversee it, but Dark Matters gave me the job of contacting you-”

“I know that. Since I’m the one you contacted.”

“My point is that I was in the loop for any further developments. So when Nureyev was recruited-”

Nope. I upgraded the stare to a glare. “That’s a really  _ nice  _ fucking word for it.”

“Stop interrupting and we’ll be done faster.” The words had bite, but her tone didn’t. She was as tired of this as I was. 

Fine. “Go ahead.”

“Wow. Thanks.” She reached into her jacket pocket, stopped herself. Probably going for a cigarette- she looked edgy enough. 

“When I heard he was going to be an agent-... Honestly I was worried that the Neuro Mapping wouldn’t have worked. The results can be unpredictable. Anything involving the brain is complicated. Occasionally subjects get confused, start half remembering stuff, sometimes they even get violent. Very rarely they can hurt the people they used to know. I thought that if that happened with him… well, he’d go after you.”

“Wait- wait. So there’s a chance he might just-?”

“If he was going to, he would have. It’s strictly a first few weeks problem.” Another pause, I got the feeling she was on the cusp of apologising- like that would help. Anyway, she didn’t- that would have been too personal for goddamn Agent Wire. 

“So I investigated. Pulled some strings. Got me and Nureyev assigned to the same case. And-... I don’t know. He was nice. Smart. Funny. Sort of fragile- this was right after- right after he’d started working for us. And he wasn’t dangerous.” She paused. Clicked her tongue. “We don’t exactly get to know other agents much. He needed someone to watch-”

“Fuck you, Sasha. You don’t get to be  _ friends  _ with him.”

She turned her head sharply, hard eyed and furious. “You know what we did with people like Nureyev before this project started? We killed them. Would you prefer it if he was dead? Because I wouldn't.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not a ‘yes’.” 

“You know I wouldn’t.”

She smiled, showed teeth. “Well-”

“I know he would. If he was himself. The last thing he’d have ever wanted to be was what you’ve made him.”

Instead of an answer she let out a long, deep breath between her teeth. She didn’t meet my eye. 

“You want me to apologise, Juno? Is that gonna make you feel better? You know what I do. You  _ should _ know that on the list of things I hate myself for- well, this doesn’t even make the top four.”

“Great.  _ Awesome. _ ” I gave her a shrug with my free arm, made the nastiest expression I could. “Good for fucking you.”

Another pause. This one was longer. 

Eventually Sasha cleared her throat, tossed what I guessed was a pack of aspirin to join the file on my bed. “They’re DNA therapy patches. You stick one on him every day for a month and they’ll clear the tag from his system. Saved them from an undercover job a year ago. Even after that, you’ll need to be careful- like really fucking careful, Juno.

I still didn’t buy what she was saying. I didn’t touch the pack, I sneered at her. “What, are you worried we’ll get you caught not toeing the company line?”

She looked coolly at me. “You said you saw his file?”

“Yeah, I think I made that pretty fucking clear.”

“You saw all of it?”

“Most. I guess I don’t have the necessary stomach for being a Dark Matters psychopath.”

“Cute.” She twisted her mouth into a mock smile. “You’ve really got me there, Juno. Look how fucking hurt I am.”

“You did a real good job exorcising your humanity, huh?”

“‘Exorcising my humanity’? Hell, did you get the dictionary out for that one?”

“Screw you.”

“Yeah, that’s more of a classic Steel line. If you’d bothered to do your research properly instead of thinking up one liners, you’d-”

She stopped herself. I watched her take her anger and stick it in a box. Watched her sigh, press her hand against her forehead. 

Maybe she and Nureyev had bonded over compartmentalising. 

“Most people recruited like him-”

Yeah, double nope. “Again, really  _ loving  _ that word choice.”

“It takes a couple of rounds of treatment to get them to agree to join Dark Matters.”

After everything else, that really shouldn’t have been a line in the sand. And yet;

I was fighting the handcuff again, snarling and furious, all of it aimed right at her. I needed to get out of here, I needed to  _ find him- _

“So- so even if they manage to say no to your fucking brainwashing the first time you just wheel them back in for another turn?!  _ Fuck  _ Sasha! Does he- does he know about that?!”

Sasha provided another cool-voiced reply. “Of course he does.” A moment of hesitation, then, “He’s programmed to think it was the right choice.”

Fuck. 

This was so, so fucked. 

It felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. I sank back, I needed- hell. I needed a game plan. Had to steady myself. Couldn’t keep struggling to get free every time she revealed a new depth to this terrible thing.

“Why are you telling me about this?” I closed my eye, clenched my jaw, tried to suppress the urge to break free of the bed via tearing off my hand. “You really want me to hate you more than I do already? Because that’s gonna be tough.”

Sasha clicked her teeth. “I’m trying to explain the situation to you. You going to listen now?”

“Do I have a choice?”

That was all the agreement she needed. 

“Nureyev is a good thief. He’s resourceful and smart. But he’s not irreplaceable. Plus his personality made him difficult to recr-... to reprogram.” 

“Yeah. ‘Highly independent, lacking loyalty, sociopathic tendencies, suggest clean scrub memory approach and rebuild.’” I’d never be able to goddamn forget anything I’d seen in his file. 

The quote actually seemed to get to her; I knew her tells, and a twitch in the right eye meant she was upset. But she was still Sasha. Emotion slid off her like oil. An eyebrow twitch and she was back to polished professionalism. 

“It’s not cost effective to put too much effort into one person; if they go through it twice and it’s not sticking, we cut the losses and-”

“And dig them a ditch?”

“He took seven rounds.”

I stared at her.  _ Fuck.  _

The anger I’d been running on froze into something worse; despair. I wanted the rage back. I couldn’t find it. 

Everything in me was thinking about him. About how he must have struggled and fought against what they’d done to him. 

About how, slowly, they’d won. 

About how nobody had come to save him. 

Seven fucking times of having those fucking wires in his brain. 

“Yeah. I know.” Sasha had been watching my face, but now she walked to the far wall, got real interested in a patch of crumbling plaster. “Also there’s his past. You know about that, right?”

I cleared my throat, I forced myself back to the present. “You- you mean Brahma. His revolutionary stuff. Taking down the Guardian Angel System.” 

Sasha nodded without turning around. “Yeah. You wouldn’t expect much information on that to get out, New Kinshasa being a dictatorship and all. But like I said, I got curious. I looked at their records. Juno- Dark Matters changed everything to the story they made up- that he got caught, that he got recruited out of juvie.”

“When you say ‘everything’...?”

“Everything. Even the original police report. They documented educational certificates from the New Kinshasa Youth Rehabilitation Centre. They ordered our agents on Brahma to start spreading intel that Peter Nureyev was just a kid with a big mouth, that the Guardian Angel System was taken down by a whole different rebel cell.”

She paused, her fingers flexed; she finished, softly, “Our propaganda works. Give it a couple of years and nobody will remember his name at all.”

“That’s…” I scrubbed my hand over my face, I pushed myself to be practical. Time for misery later. “That’s a lot of fucking work for one guy. Hell- you could just have changed his name, right?”

“Yeah. Instead we invested a goddamn lot in destroying an entire history.” She glanced at me. Her eyes were dark. Narrowed. Was she expecting me to argue that it wasn’t weird? Good luck with that. It  _ was  _ weird. 

“So why?”

Sasha shrugged. “Honestly? Hard to tell. You’re the detective. My best guess is someone high up the food chain got their wrist slapped because of ‘Rex Glass’. Made Nureyev a personal project- maybe for revenge, maybe to prove a point. Wanted to keep his name as part of whatever their game was. Either way it means that they won’t be happy to see him go. They’re gonna look for you, and they’re going to look hard.”

Hell.

“Sounds petty.”

“‘Petty and well-funded’ is pretty much the Dark Matters motto.”

“That’s my line.” I barely caught myself before I could smile at her. Force of habit; sometimes it’s hard to make yourself hate old friends. 

Sasha sighed real deep. “I’ve never tried to convince you that we were the good guys. By working for them I got to get out of Hyperion. And now… maybe, sometimes, I get to make the right choice. That’s all.”

“Optimism looks weird on you.”

“I’m not-,” she cut herself off with a headshake, her voice turned strangely soft. “Fuck. This is all  _ so  _ fucked.”

I snorted humourlessly. “How many ‘agents’ does Dark Matters have like him?”

“No idea. It’s called ‘New Leaf’- the whole ‘brainwash criminals’ project. Mainly it’s used to recruit wetwork staff. Assassins and stuff. Take serial killers and other psychos and make them  _ our  _ psychos.” A pause. “I didn’t know much about it till I met Nureyev. It’s not something Dark Matters publicises, even to agents it’s mainly an urban legend.”

And a couple of minutes ago she’d been talking about the surgical procedure. Hell, she’d given me a file on it. 

“You and Nureyev.”

“What?”

“What were you going to say about him? Before I said you didn’t get to be his friend.”

Her shoulders tensed, she wrapped her arms around herself, it was defensive and aggressive at once. Like a porcupine. Which, yeah, was Sasha all over. 

“He was in a bad place when he started with us. Don’t- don’t say anything. I know that he was only like that because of what we’d done. But, fuck. He needed someone to keep an eye out for him. And… like I said. I liked him. Honestly he sort of reminded me of you, at first, then… He made me laugh, and he cared more than he showed. That’s a lot.”

Her voice had been trailing off, but it came back with more purpose. “I did what I could. I’m not… you know I suck at being  _ nice _ , and Dark Matters doesn’t like inter-agent friendships anyway. They think it divides loyalty- and hell, I guess they were right. I made sure he didn’t get sent on anything which looked like a suicide mission. I kept him from being assigned a new handler- K was a dick, but he wasn’t a sadist. If Peter and I were in the same city I made sure I saw him. When he was stationed somewhere longer term- like he was here- I recommended they assign him apartments that weren’t shit holes.”

Fuck. 

“You really do care about him.”

Her expression turned incredulous. “What, you thought I was doing this because of you?”

“Sasha-”

“I have no idea what he was like before we got him, Juno.” She turned to face me, completely this time. “I don’t know if I really am letting you run off into the sunset with an ex-psychopath, or if- if you  _ do  _ figure out a way to heal his brain, he’ll stab you in your sleep. I like the guy he is now enough to want to stop us from destroying him and I’m taking a big goddamn bet on it all working out okay.”

Her hands shoved violently into her jacket pockets, she kept talking- almost under her breath now. “I didn’t ask for your fucking ‘good person’ brownie points and I don’t want them. This is me being selfish; getting one person out. I’m not trying to take down the 'system' or whatever else.”

I met her eyes. She looked back, held the gaze for a solid five seconds. 

Finally, she shrugged and ran her hand through her hair. “Something about your little sister dying. Or your brother, I guess. You never stop looking for someone to take care of.” 

The words sat between us, settled into the silence. 

Eventually I broke it. 

“This is fucked up.”

“Yeah. It is.”

Hell. 

I drummed my fingers on the side of the bed. Ran through my list of unanswered questions. May as well straighten out any of the details I had left, and I needed to fill the space before the silence could return. 

“When you were following me yesterday- hell, the day before yesterday- you weren’t planning on hiring me, right? You were looking for him.”

Sasha shot me a look which was almost-maybe grateful. Neither of us liked to linger on emotions. 

“You were Peter’s only known connection on Mars. Even if he didn’t remember you, he knew about you from reading his file. K always thought that he’d probably stolen the Soul, and he guessed that he’d go to you with it. Detective with shady underground connections and all. If Nureyev had taken it, it would make sense for him to manipulate you into helping him out.” She shrugged. “I convinced K to change tactics and use you as an asset.”

‘Asset’. Fuck. 

I exhaled, I wanted- fuck. I wanted this situation to be anything else. 

“Nureyev thought he’d manipulated me too, you know? When he told me everything he- well, he didn’t think there was any other way I could have... not hated him.”

Sasha didn’t reply. I don’t know what I expected her to say. 

So instead I kept talking. I needed to. It was all so goddamn much. 

“It’s fucking weird. If it wasn’t for the memories… he’s not so different from how he was.” I closed my eye. Leaned my forehead on my good hand. “More jumpy. Worse at hiding stuff. Less- less suave, I guess, generally. More self loathing- or more obvious about it, I- fuck, I don’t even know what you changed and what you didn’t.”

“You still love him?”

The question caught me so off guard that I was tempted to snark something back. Me and Sasha had never been the sort of friends who talked about their feelings. But I guess even I have a limit. 

“You know I do.”

“Then take care of him. He deserves someone to do that for him. He’s… he’s a good person.” She crossed the distance between us. Put the cuff key down beside my hand. Hesitated, then, like she was sharing a secret;

“When he called me- I don’t know what happened to you last night but he looked like he’d been through hell and you needed overnight treatment for oxygen deprivation, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a party. He was frantic- so fucking scared for you, scared because you were hurt, scared that Dark Matters would work out who you were and see you as a liability. When you see him-...Tell him it’s all taken care of, footage erased, records scrubbed.” Sasha clicked her tongue. “And get him out of Hyperion fast. I can cover for maybe a day.”

“Did you tell him any of this? I mean- anything about how you want me to save him?”

“Fuck, no. If he knew he’d have already called Dark Matters. He can’t-,” she sighed, she almost had the decency to look sorry. “He can’t  _ not. _ ”

And hell. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t poke at things I should leave alone. 

“I don’t believe that you’re not pissed about this. Any of this fucking- this ‘Project New Leaf’ stuff. You say it’s not the worst thing you’ve been involved in, and hell, I believe that, but… Sasha. I know you. You can’t be okay with them doing it to anyone- not just Nureyev.”

She didn’t respond. Not for a long time. 

“What do you want me to say, Juno? That I want to run off with you guys? You need someone to cover for you. You want me to stop the project? I don’t have that sort of power. I’m a fucking fragment of the Dark Matters system. I’ve made my peace with that. Just because it’s not right for Peter doesn’t mean it’s not right for me. Hell.” She smiled and it was cold as Martian tundra. “I don’t even know if I think New Leaf is a bad idea. Would it be better if we killed every criminal we captured? If someone we brainwash into working for us saves a life, saves two lives by killing someone else- what’s the moral math on that?”

“You can’t treat people like things, Sasha.”

“People  _ are  _ things. Sure, we’re things that can think and feel or whatever, but at the end of the day we’re all just-... part of something bigger and tougher and fucking meaner. You can do what you can to make it less crappy, you can be 'nice' and kind and try to treat people as if we're special but- hell, Steel, I don't need to tell you that you can't beat the house.”

Hell. This was rapidly turning into philosophy. I didn’t have the energy for philosophy. Everything I could say to her she'd already thought anyway. 

“What’re you going to tell Dark Matters?”

“I'll make something up. Maybe he betrayed us, tried to kill me. Killed K. I’d tell them Peter was dead too, but, well, they’d want the body. We’ll see if they believe it or not.”

“Sasha…”

“Save me the pity. I’ve spent a long time earning whatever I get. And there’s a good chance it’ll be a promotion, since I’m gonna tell them I tidied the situation up.”

I unlocked the cuff silently. Handed it to her. “I really ought to punch you or something.”

“Yeah? Try it. I’ll break your other arm.”

Wasn’t like I’d really wanted to anyway. “Where did you send him?”

“Back to his apartment. They’re not going to look there, and the security footage is easy to destroy.”

“... If this hadn’t been such a disaster- you weren’t going to tell me about him, right? That’s why you and K lied about their not being photos on file. You wanted him to stay an agent.”

For all of one millisecond she looked pained. That’s a lifetime in Sasha Wire’s emotional life. 

“Hell, Juno. With things as they are now you might both be dead in a week. I wanted you- I wanted both of you- to stay safe. But after everything, that’s impossible. So I figure… enjoy what you’ve got, right? For as long as you fucking can.”

She’d had worse ideas. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TWO THINGS: 1. there is a lot to be said about genre in the Juno Steel stories however I stand firm in my belief that at their heart they are noir stories if only because the characters are noir characters. However they are also stories about people interacting with systems and class and that is also very very noir. 2. sasha is like genuinely my favourite. 
> 
> she is a foil to juno in that she's a version of him who sunk cost fallacied being part of a system (the police for him, dark matters for her) and stuck around when he left. like this is not subtle and will CERTAINLY have been observed by others in the fandom- like they both lost siblings, they're both deep pessimists, they're both cynics who hate that they cannot stomp out the CRUMB of hope that remains within them. And then juno is able to move himself past that. I do not think sasha will. she's in too deep and she's too wrapped up in layers of denial. 
> 
> (wait for me to be proven wrong rip in advance.)
> 
> is it too much of a plot convenience for her to be friends with peter? I MEAN I SURE HOPE NOT. but aside from whether or not i set that up well in the plot, she's similar to juno. It makes sense that they'd be drawn to the same sort of people- even if it's in different ways. I probably didn't need to have the 'brother or sister' line in there to make it clear that sasha and peter were not romantic given that this fandom is full of the gays but at the same time me mentioning it here allows me to say how funny it would have been if i'd had sasha be like 'oh yeah we were dating nbd #sashreyev4ever'
> 
> i feel like i need to end this with an irreverent youtube link so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5Ir6CzxKl4


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PENULTIMATE CHAPTER LADS

I was in the middle of realising that I only had the torn, bloodied mess of a wedding dress to wear when a hospital porter knocked on the door. “Mr Zinnia? Someone sent over some stuff for you.”

“Uh.” Yeah, I should have checked which fake name Nureyev had checked me in under. “Thanks.”

The box was cardboard, the return address was a cheapish outdoor mall near to-

Near to Rita’s apartment. 

I opened it. Inside were clothes in my size (which would have been creepy as hell if they’d been sent by anyone but her) and a phone. When I unlocked it thirty messages came up from Rita’s number. I scanned through them as I dressed- awkward and slow with one arm in a cast- and considered texting back. Then I decided to be a human being and called instead. 

“ _ MISTA STEEL? _ ”

If I hadn’t taken the precaution of holding the phone at arm’s length that would have been the end of my eardrums. “Rita-”

“Ohmy _ god _ Mista Steel, I was so worried! Your phone got blown up!”

“How do you-?”

“I had a tracker in it!”

“ _ What? _ ”

“Just since the whole Soul thing ‘cause I was thinking if you got kidnapped because of what we did it’d be good to track you so I put one in and there’s one in mine too so you could track me and I sent you an email about it but I guess you didn’t see it but also-  _ also  _ are you okay, Mista Steel? You’re in hospital! With oxygen deprivation!”

“You read my hospital records- no, wait. How’d you even know I was in hospital?”

“When your phone blew up I started scannin’ satellites and news feeds and hospital admissions and then one matched you and  _ then  _ it got wiped outta the system so I said to myself, ‘Rita that’s real suspicious!’ And it being suspicious also seemed like you! So I hacked the camera database and checked the files and it  _ was  _ you so then I thought ‘Mista Steel’s gonna need clothes and he’s gonna need a new phone’ so I ordered some! And I know you  _ are  _ okay ‘cause I read the hospital report but Mista Steel  _ are you okay?! _ ”

As she spoke I started to let her voice wash over me. It was so damn good to hear her. Her genuine concern, her genuine kindness, her genuine… everything. It felt like years since we’d talked. 

I swallowed down the impulse to start tearing up over the phone. Nobody needed a crying detective. 

“... Yeah. I am. Rita, are  _ you  _ okay? Where are you?”

“I went to the Cerberus Province like you said! It’s so  _ crime-y _ ! And I’m workin’ offa a computer that’s like if a buncha weird computers all got together and had a baby! But Buddy and Jet are real nice and I think they want to hire me? But I said no hiring me unless they hire you too and they said you’d said no to that so-”

“Wait, they-,” Okay, well, that made one part of this easier. But first. “I need you to know- hell, I  _ really  _ need to thank you. For everything.”

“Aw, no problem Mista Steel- I hope you like the shirt I got you! It has lil’ hearts on it!”

“Yeah, I… I saw that. But I didn’t mean the clothes. I mean- I  _ do  _ mean the clothes, but I also mean like… all of it. You’re just- you’re the person I want in my corner. It’s been a weird couple of days and you’re… you being there means more than you know.”

“Are you all loopy on painkillers?”

“I’m being sincere!”

“I know, Mista Steel.” I could hear her smiling; it made me smile too. “You’re a real good boss. And it was real sweet of you to want me to be safe, but next time I’m gonna ignore you telling me to leave. On account of that this time you  _ did  _ end up in hospital which was like the second worst case scenario, first being that you ended up in the morgue.”

“Noted.” I changed my hold on the phone, difficult with one arm in a cast. “… Rita, can I ask you something?”

“You just did!”

“Yeah. But like- your opinion?”

“That’s a real serious voice you’re doing boss.”

“It’s a real serious subject.” I sighed, sat down on the hard hospital bed. “I need to leave Hyperion. Quickly. And I don’t think I can come back. So that job they offered me, well...”

I explained it to her. All of it. She believed me- hell, she’d seen Nureyev’s files, she knew it was true. But then her believing me hadn’t ever been the problem. 

“So… so I need to go.” I said finally, “And I don’t want to do that without you. But this is. Fuck, Rita. It’s a lot. It’s accepting a job where the only sure thing is that we’re going to be breaking the law. So I’m not asking you to come, but-”

“Boss. Did you just hear me when I said next time you weren’t sending me away? Because right now it sounds like you’re trying to do that, only you’d be the one leaving.”

What the hell had I done to deserve her?

“... Are you sure?”

“Well, Mista Steel, the way I see it- Hyperion is just one city and there’s a lot more cities out there and after everything that’s happened here- maybe there’s a better one? And if you need to go to save Mr Nureyev then someone’s gonna need to go to save you. You’re sure not gonna do it yourself.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.” I scratched at my cast. “But… really? Just like that?”

“Aw, Boss.” I could see her tilting her head, smiling that wide smile at the phone. “I’ll see you real soon, okay?”

And then she hung up. Which meant-

Well. This was happening. 

I finished putting on the clothes she’d sent- which little hearts notwithstanding- were fine. Checked my face in the mirror and saw the expected mess. Bruised. Scratched. Exhausted. Hair sort of singed. But hell, Nureyev had seen me looking worse. 

Then I looked at the things Sasha had left. The file. The DNA patches in their unmarked box. 

Had she been lying about Nureyev? Felt convenient that she’d have been bff with him, but if it was down to them both knowing me… I could see  _ how  _ it would happen, even if it felt like a lot of moving parts lining up in just the right way. 

And then, if she’d been telling the truth about that, did the same go for what she’d said about the stuff they’d done to his brain being irreversible? 

In a way it didn’t matter- not right now. Right now the important thing was getting him out, whatever him he was. But later… 

Hell. I wouldn’t just quit looking because she’d told me to. I wouldn’t do that even if I’d trusted her. 

And if there really wasn’t anything I could do? I’d still love him. Do my best for him. 

On the cab ride over I scanned the headlines for any mention of last night. Found one fast:

_ CECIL KANAGAWA: CLASS WARRIOR?? _

_ Is the Media Mogul Heir waging a war of one against the city’s elite? We have word that last night he broke up an illegal auction selling dangerous weaponry, taking a stance and protecting the little guy! Did you guess the identity of Hyperion’s Hometown Hero? Share the moment that told you Cecil Kanagawa was more than he seemed with #CitizenCecil to win a free pair of his new Leg Extensions™! How will this factor into the next season of Jaws of Death? Our #SpoilerWatch crew is suspecting a historical revolutions theme- tune in for the premier next week to see if Cecil will #LetThemEatCake! _

Well. Okay. If he was already cashing in on it he couldn’t be too upset. But… 

I texted a quick apology. Added a ‘goodbye’ at the end. 

As it sent the car pulled up outside the familiar block of Nureyev’s building.

Imagining him being here felt strange. Like seeing a fish walking- if the fish was an interplanetary thief and the walking was like… renting property. 

I stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking up and down, wondering if he’d liked the trees they had growing on the corner, if he’d ever been to the cafe down the block. What had his life looked like? I thought about the apartment, how empty it had felt. Not even tidy in a way which said it was occupied by a neat freak, just-

Bare. 

I scuffed my shoe on the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of my uncomfortably new jacket. I-

I was stalling. Why was I stalling? Nerves? Well, that was fucking stupid. Last night we’d fallen out of the sky in each other’s arms. 

But I guess that was the problem. You do something that goddamn like-  _ big _ , like  _ important _ together, it’s always a weird step back to normal. It’s always scary to stick around and work out what normal is. 

Like still being there the morning after facing down a mutated part-Martian archaeologist. Like still being there the morning after you tell someone you love him.

I didn’t have the time to be fucking scared. I had someone to save. 

I marched in, walked the halls, climbed the stairs. Arrived at the door. I knocked.

He answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biggest regret about this story is shortchanging Rita into an ex machina. It is a great shame and shall bring a pox upon my household. Hopefully she is at least decently in character when she does show up but all the same I apologise to Rita. The hearts on the shirt she got Juno were certainly anatomically accurate. 
> 
> Biggest success of this story is #CitizenCecil. I may just end it a chapter early because nothing can surpass his commercial rebranding as a communist.
> 
> ALSO IM AWARE THAT THERE'S NO PETER IN THIS CHAPTER EITHER AND THAT THAT'S LIKELY TO ANNOY PEOPLE IM S O R R Y I KNOW HE'S THE BEST ONE   
> a lack of peter is required to cleanse the palette sometimes


	16. Chapter 16

Nureyev stared at me. I stared at him. 

“... You’re here.” He said, finally. “You’re here and- and you’re okay?”

I forced a smile. “Yeah. Looks like. You… shaved your head?”

“What? Oh.” He was still staring at me but one of his hands reached up toward his head, stopped vaguely at shoulder height. “I- yes. I shaved it- I, ah- they’ll want to- and they- they did a terrible job last time- they left cuts and-”

Fuck fuck fuck _fuck-_

Okay, shouting really wouldn’t be productive. 

“You- you shaved your head to make it easier for them to-?” Nope, couldn’t even finish that sentence. Didn’t matter. He wasn’t going back. “... Are you okay?” Christ- fucking stupid question, “I mean- can I come in?”

Nureyev half stepped back, for a moment he looked almost confused. Then sort of embarrassed. “Yes- yes of course you can. I am being an awful host, aren’t I?” A pained expression passed over his face. “I don’t even have anything to give- oh! I have coffee!” He winced. “Would you… like some coffee?” 

Hell, we were doing a weird job of this conversation. 

I smiled at him, it felt crooked and awkward, felt like it was being pushed out of my chest. “I would really, _really_ , like some coffee.”

Even though Nureyev being here meant there were a few signs of life, the apartment still felt empty. What was left of his fancy auction outfit had been thrown over a chair; closets were open in the kitchen, in the bathroom. It was sort of messy, but without the _stuff_ that implied. 

I watched him find the coffee, messing in his cabinets and putting water in the pot. He was dressed in a shirt and pants, pretty much identical- if cleaner- to the ones he’d been wearing when I found him in the shipping container, and he looked even more exhausted than he had when I’d last seen him. So this morning after a night of not sleeping, he’d dressed for work and shaved his head to make it easier for them to cut open his skull. 

Fuck this all. 

“Is she okay?”

It took me a moment, I’d been distracted by my thoughts. “What?”

“Is she okay? Agent W said she was going to contact Dark Matters before you woke up.” His voice sounded superficially mild, but under it was something sharp. His shoulders had a careful stillness to them. “If you’re here instead I can only assume-”

“What, you think I could take Sasha? With a broken arm?”

Nureyev paused, turned to look at me. There was a glint in the corner of his eye. Suspicion? “I suppose not. Unless you surprised her.”

All right. Looked like this _was_ where the conversation was heading. God- hopefully he hadn’t had a chance to grab a knife.

“She thought I should see you first. Guess she’s getting sentimental in her old age. Or maybe she hoped you could persuade me not to rip all of Dark Matters apart looking for you.” I shrugged. “Also, apparently you guys are friends? I’m not really sure what to do with that but-”

He turned around properly, leaned against the closet with one hand on the countertop. “Can I? Persuade you to let me go, I mean.”

“Nope.”

He smiled, his sharp teeth flashing, his eyes glancing down. “Stubborn Detective Steel.” And he sighed. Looked up to meet my eye. “So you’re here to… what, beat me into submission? Carry me away to freedom?” Nureyev was still smiling but it had frozen now; hollowed into empty, hopeless. “You’re very valiant, Juno. Even after everything I’ve done to you.”

I scoffed. “You mean like saving my life last night? Twice?”

“I mean like allowing you to almost die. After I said I wouldn’t. I still- hell.” The smile fell away, he was blank faced again. “No matter what I try to do, I fail you. You were so _pale,_ Juno, I was so- I was so scared for you. I know I shouldn’t have taken you to hospital, I knew that Dark Matters would be watching but-”

“Hey- hey.” I walked to him. Touched the hand he had pressed against the counter. I could see the shadow which had drained him back in Cecil’s apartment returning. I wouldn’t let it. “I’m alive. _Because_ you got me to the hospital. Because you got us down from that goddamn rocket. Because you started my heart again. Do you want me to go back further? You jumped onto a fucking drone, you stopped the guards- would this be better if I wrote it up?”

His eyes turned toward our hands. “I don’t know what you see in me. I don’t know why I’m worth all this… this trouble to you, Juno. Right now you’re trying to comfort me and I don’t deserve it. Not as I am. Not as I was.” Then, even more softly, “What do you _want_ from me?”

“I don’t want anything. Just- just to get you out of a hell of a situation.” I tried to meet his eyes but he wouldn’t look at me. “You want me to say that I love you? Because in case it wasn’t obvious already, I do. Like fucking _stupidly._ Like- like fucking head-over-heels or whatever other weird metaphor you want to crack out. Really.”

“Why?”

The never-serious part of me wanted to make some jab about him digging for compliments, but his voice- 

Nureyev sounded tiny, lost. All vulnerability. All hurt. Even I could stay sincere for that.

“First time we met. Do you know what happened? After all the mask stuff.”

“The outline.” He mumbled in the same voice. “You discovered I wasn’t a Dark Matters agent, you had me arrested. I escaped.”

The way he said it was detached- practical. I felt a fresh sting of outrage against Dark Matters for taking that moment from him. I made myself swallow it. This wasn’t the time. It wasn’t helpful. 

“That’s… accurate, I guess. Sort of missed the good bit.” 

He looked up. Met my eye. His expression was serious, earnest, desperate. “Tell me.” 

And there wasn’t time, not really, but-

But I couldn’t say no to that. 

“We were in my office. Drinking. Flirting. You said I was handsome when I was morally outraged.” I smiled, glanced away because I was suddenly embarrassed. But when I looked up he was smiling too, and it almost reached his eyes. 

So I closed the already small gap between us by another step.

“I told you you didn’t have to go. And you said that you did, because your life was out there. But ‘life could wait a night’. Which was a fucking line, but, hell. You sold it.”

Nureyev leaned back into the counter, his eyes flickered closed, then open; he said in a voice which was a little hoarse; “What then?”

“You kissed me. Pushed me against my desk. You had your hands in my coat. I-,” my hand hadn’t left his till now- I reached around him and touched the small of his back, gently pulled him closer, “You were reaching for the key. I was getting my handcuffs ready.” 

“Romantic.” He managed to murmur and I wasn’t able to take my eye off his half-parted lips. 

“You have no damn idea.”

I leaned up, he didn’t move, I was almost pinning him back and fuck- I wanted to-

“Juno… this... “ Nureyev’s eyes were closed, he had one hand poised right above the back of my neck. I could feel him trembling through the air. “Dark Matters will… It is- a bad idea.”

“Yeah.”

“We should…”

“Yeah.”

“I…” His fingers brushed over my skin, my neck, then my cheekbone. “If- if we...”

“Yeah?”

“Juno.” He let out a deep breath, he pressed his hand against my chest and pushed me gently back. “I can’t.”

I was lost in the moment for a second longer, but I forced myself free. Exhaled. Yeah, he was right. No time. 

“Then- then you said we could run away together.” I kept my eye down, shoved myself to the conversation we’d been having. “And honestly? Even though we’d just met and I called the cops on you and- well, I was even more of an idiot than I am now- I sort of wanted to go. But, hell, I couldn’t even admit that to myself. So I said no. Like… I’d have to have been a different person to just- to leave then-”

Nureyev cleared his throat. “You really don’t need to defend your decision. It was the right choice.”

I made the ‘right choice’ again and ignored that. “The cops arrived, and once you’d gone I found a note in my sofa. Signed with your real name. And I didn’t get it then- what it meant to you that you’d told me who you were. I was actually pretty dismissive of it, later. Which- not my best moment.”

He frowned. 

“Look- what I’m saying is. You did that. For me. Gave me this big fucking statement of trust and- and you gave me a piece of yourself.” I stuck my unbroken hand into my jacket pocket, shot him an uncertain smile. “So if you want me to tell you what I love about you. It starts there. You’d spent the whole evening flirting at me, you’d been kind and charming and hot and smart and you’d saved my life a couple of times and then you fucking _trusted_ me. How the hell could I not fall in love?” 

And now he was staring at me. Stayed quiet for too long, then finally, twisting his hands together:

“It is… nice that you think that I did that because I trusted you. It’s nice that you believe in me. But I was manipulating you, Juno. Can’t you see that? I gave you my name- what did that link me to? What happened in Brahma. The one thing I’d done which on the outside made me seem heroic. I wanted you to look for me. To find out about the Guardian Angel System. To think I was some dashing warrior of the people. That I was anything worthy of you.”

Like hell. “Do you remember that, or are you assuming it?”

“I don’t need to remember it.”

“That’s what I thought.” 

“Juno…” He shook his head. Straightened up. Right on time the coffee pot beeped, he turned and poured me a cup. Carefully didn’t touch my hand as he passed it over. 

I sipped. It was terrible. 

“At the end of the day this is semantics. I’m not going to leave Dark Matters.” 

“Sasha told me what they’ll do to you.”

It slipped out, I knew as soon as I’d said it- as soon as I felt the temperature in the room change- that it had been a mistake to show that card. 

Nureyev froze. His voice, when he spoke, came slowly and carefully. “Ah. So she didn’t just send you here to talk to me, did she?” Then, more quietly, “I will never understand why so many good people want to protect me from what I deserve.”

No choice now. I dug in my heels. “I’ll believe a lot of things, Nureyev. But not that you’re okay with that.”

“And nothing will convince you that I am. Not my telling you, not my going with Dark Matters peacefully when they come for me.”

“She said they’d take everything from you-”

“And she was being melodramatic. I’ll be fine. Certainly- certainly changed, but I _will_ be fine.”

“You will not be-”

Before I could finish he picked up his own coffee and made his way past me, over to sit down on the sofa. I followed. 

“Is this the part where you try to make me fight you?” He wasn’t facing me, he asked it with a hollow voice. “Because I will win, Juno. I’m faster than you. I don’t have a broken arm.” He sighed, “I’d much rather that we enjoy the little time we have left.” 

There wasn’t any point in arguing with him. He wasn’t going to go back to them. And hell, there wasn’t time for this. 

But I couldn’t just let what he’d said stand. He’d shaved his fucking head for them. 

“They’re going to _lobotomise_ you! Nureyev- you can’t-”

He cut across me with a voice so quiet and firm that I had to listen. “They will do what they have to. But-,” and I caught it, a tremble, a sharpness, “While I am... while I’m still here-”

Then he finally looked at me. This desperate, scared expression written on his face and in the lines of his shoulders and his neck, and I suddenly realised that he’d been pretending to be okay for my stupid benefit, that he’d been pinning it back to make _me_ feel better.

I was such a fucking idiot. 

“Could you please just talk to me? Just- just let me hear your voice for a while?”

I sank down beside him. This was- this was fucking horrible. I wanted to grab him, not let go, drag him out but-

But he was right; I couldn’t beat him in a fight. Even if I could, the thought of trying to hurt him more than he was hurt already _stung._

That wasn’t how I saved him. 

“... So... “ I sighed. Scrubbed a hand through my hair. I could waste time thinking up a thousand clever ways of doing this, but when it came right down to it I’d never been good at subtle. “When did you decide to steal the Soul?”

Nureyev’s expression had been desperate. Now, like flicking a switch, half skipping shocked, it turned hard. Suspicious. Eyes narrowed. “I ‘decided’ to steal it when Dark Matters told me to.”

“Yeah. But I mean when did you decide to steal it from Dark Matters and throw it into the Core?”

“I’m sorry-?”

“Or like, get one of those workers to throw it into the Core. I’m guessing you weren’t planning on going in yourself. What was that part of the plan by the way? Like, you pay them to destroy it, they pretend to take you prisoner. Dark Matters find you and you tell them you don’t know what happened? I mean- they _would_ have figured it out. But you could buy some time that way. Probably had a deal with the Core workers, to give them enough time to get out of Hyperion. You’d still get Dark Matters lobotomising you, but that was okay- right?” 

I paused, I met his eyes and waited for a contradiction, for him to try to argue. He didn’t. 

“The thing is the workers there are all Sold Staff. It’s a pretty desperate situation. Maybe one of them went to MacMarn, offered him the Soul for their freedom? And then of course MacMarn wanted to make sure he got the best deal. So he contacted the Floating Auction, and he contacted Dark Matters to see who would pay more.”

Nureyev settled back on the sofa, I could see him pulling a layer of smooth self assuredness over himself. For protection, to help him deny what I was saying? I wasn’t sure. Didn’t matter. I kept talking.

“And Agent K gets the call. Makes sense, since he was running the operation. He shows up at MacMarn’s office. K’s desperate not to get blamed for any of this. I guess by then MacMarn’s already sold the Soul to the auction, so K makes an executive decision and kills him. Collects some DNA so he can get it back later- and he sets off his helium allergy by being so close to the Core. Remember when we left? We both smelled of it- helium and sulfur. Anyway, by the time Sasha arrives and she and K come after me, MacMarn’s already rotting.” 

I let out the breath I’d been half holding, I tilted my head without breaking eye contact. 

“How am I doing? I mean- you weren’t there for that part, but I’m guessing you’ve worked some of this out too. I know you only knew the Core workers had betrayed you when I told you about the auction- I should have known from the way you reacted. Why would knowing where the Soul was be worse than not knowing? But then- you thought you already knew. You thought it was destroyed.”

Nureyev was frowning very slightly. Finally he found his voice. Cleared his throat. 

“You’ve certainly put a lot of work into this theory, Juno. One thing I’ve noticed which is missing is motive.”

“That’s the easiest part. What do Souls do? Control people. And what’s Dark Matters done to you?” I left the space blank, watched his eyes flick away. Watched him find his argument. 

“I’ve told you that I am grateful for what Dark Matters have-”

“I know. And I believe you. Dark Matters are good at their inhumane bullcrap. They did a really great job of messing with your head. But… you still know it’s wrong, right? Maybe just if it’s not for you. If they had something like the Soul, if they could control whole populations… that would be different. That would be Brahma. You couldn’t let it happen. Because even though you think you deserve it, you know it’s goddamn monstrous. And because, deep down, you know Dark Matters can’t be trusted to ever help anyone.”

His knuckles tightened, the fingers biting into his palm. 

“You know when it was that I worked it out? When you resuscitated me. When you said ‘destroying the Soul was the most important thing’. I think it was the way you said it, the way that when you were desperate and scared, _that_ was what you went to. It made everything else click, all the other times you’d said basically the same thing- even the times I said it and you didn’t argue. You weren’t exactly being subtle- even Cecil noticed. And maybe I would have clocked it sooner but I’d assumed that you were just going along with what I wanted because at least a destroyed Soul was better than someone else getting it. But it was more than that, it always had been. It was what _you_ wanted _._ ”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth, waited while Nureyev put his coffee cup down onto the table. 

“You know what’s funny? Or not funny but- well. Sasha told me to take care of you. God- this whole time I’ve been trying to do that- I’ve been thinking I have to protect you. And sure, you do need someone to keep you away from Dark Matters. But you’ve been running the show. _You_ knew Dark Matters couldn’t be trusted with the Soul, _you_ made a plan to get rid of it, you put it into action.” I watched him. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling- I just- I _loved_ him. “You’re incredible- you know that? Even fucking brainwashed, Peter Nureyev is goddamn unsinkable.” 

He met my eye. I saw him take in my expression, I watched his brain work, weigh the pros and cons of coming clean, and finally-

Nureyev resettled himself on the sofa. Folded his hands together. Adjusted his glasses. 

“I should have known better than to think I could fool you.” He sighed, a bone tired noise. “Detective Steel solves it again.”

“Nureyev- what I don’t get is why you lied about it.” I shook my head, “You could have told me. You didn’t have to be alone in this.” 

“It’s a little more complicated than that. I…” Nureyev let out a shuddering breath. “It’s difficult to-”

His voice broke off suddenly, he swallowed. Shook his head. I leaned over to him, touched his arm, a pang of worry hitting me. 

“Nureyev? You okay?”

“Yes. Yes. Sorry. It is- it’s a little difficult to confront the truth. To recognise it. No doubt because of my conditioning- which told me even as I was- even as I did what I did that it was a terrible idea.” He looked up with a shaken, uncertain smile. “Which of course, didn’t stop me. I really am a traitorous criminal to the core.”

“That’s really not how I’d describe you.” I rubbed his arm, and after a moment the contact seemed to steady him enough to keep talking- words rushed and quiet. 

“You- you must believe that it wasn’t an easy choice. I went back and forward for as long as I could. I didn’t want to be disloyal- I am- I _am_ grateful to Dark Matters for what they’ve done for me- but the Soul was too dangerous. I’m not- I do know that was done to me- I know if it happened to anyone else-,” he broke off, cleared his throat. “I know that it would be- be cruel and- and unlawful and inhuman and-“

Nureyev blinked, he winced. 

“... I’m sorry. I’ve-I’ve lost my train of thought. It’s hard to focus on why it would be wrong. But I know it _is_. I know when you made that, ah, joke, about it happening to you at the auction, I know how that- how it hurt.”

I felt that like a punch to the heart. He couldn’t _think_ it. Nureyev, who was so fucking clever with his words, had had them taken from him.

And I didn’t want to see him struggling, I wanted to tell him it was okay- he didn’t owe me an explanation- but he was still talking and after everything he deserved to do that without interruption. 

“The Soul needed to be destroyed in a way which meant it couldn’t be restored. It _needed_ to be destroyed.” 

His eyes had become dark. Distracted. Unseeingly focused on a far corner of the room. 

“I wasn’t lying to you when I told you I was depressed. I have trouble sleeping some nights.” He twitched a fragment of a smile. “Most nights. I started walking around Hyperion, going to unpleasant bars, wallowing in my misery. Deeply pathetic of me. But it meant I had passing familiarity with some of the Core workers, I knew that nothing comes back from Nuclear Fission. And it took so much- so much effort to be able to consider that I could betray Dark Matters. I almost turned myself in, several times. I almost had to- to hide the thought from myself, to pretend it wasn’t what I was going to do. I suppose I must have developed a knack for compartmentalising in my old life. Shameful to use it again.” 

His shoulders slumped, his expression turned flat. 

Hell. 

How was it that whenever I thought I’d reached the end of how fucked up this situation was, it managed to get worse? “Nureyev-”

Before I could say anything else he was already speaking again, voice low and empty. “But you’re wrong, Juno. I’m nothing close to incredible. If I’d just done my job- if I’d just brought Dark Matters the Soul- well, you wouldn’t have been hurt, you wouldn’t know about what had happened to me, K would be alive. None of the mess of the last few days would have happened. Hell- the Soul almost fell into the hands of some Hyperion billionaire at that auction. Because of me. At least Dark Matters would have used it- they would have used it with _purpose, responsibly_ , they wouldn’t have-”

“I know that you know that isn’t true.” 

My interruption cut him off, he looked vaguely at me and then he sighed. Sagged a little further. 

“It doesn’t matter. I made a mistake in trusting my own judgement. I… I do deserve whatever they do to me. I welcome it.” 

Nureyev closed his eyes, let his head lean into his hands. 

“I want to be a good man, Juno. I want it so desperately- I want to stop having selfish thoughts, to stop… wishing for things I don’t deserve. I want to- to stop _wishing._ When Dark Matters takes me in, they’ll find out that I betrayed them. Either they’ll execute me on the spot, or more likely, they’ll entirely numb the part of my brain that’s been so difficult to control. And I can… I can be free of it. That’s what I want. Juno, please believe that it _is_ what I want. It’s why I didn’t tell you- I couldn’t allow you to think that this… lapse of judgement meant I wanted to leave them.”

The silence settled between us. And again, I wanted to grab him, shake him, make him listen. But I was better than that, and he deserved a lot better. 

“You’re scared.” I said finally. “You’re fucking terrified because you don’t think you can trust yourself. You know you’ve done bad stuff in the past-”

“‘Bad stuff’ is a very nice way to put it.” He shook his head again. “Sorry. I simply- I can’t listen to you excuse my actions-”

“I’m not excusing.” He looked up, instantly disbelieving. I rolled my eye and took his hand. “You’ve hurt people. Killed them, stolen things they need. I know that. I’m not saying I don’t care that you’ve done it. But hell- neither of us is innocent. I just- I believe that you want to do better. You know why? Because you didn’t give Dark Matters the Soul.”

I sat straighter. Moved closer. 

“Peter- the only way to be a good person is to keep trying to do good stuff, and whatever that means it definitely isn’t ‘whatever Dark Matters tells you’.” He opened his mouth to argue, I was faster. “The hardest thing in the whole world is to keep trying and thinking and judging and not knowing if what you’re doing is helping an inch, but if you want to be better it’s the only thing you _can_ do too. There’s no black and white- there’s no easy way to tell what’s wrong and right, and there’s no easy way to be ‘good’. If you hand yourself over to Dark Matters you’re taking a shortcut to nowhere. You’re signing up to be part of a system that’s shitty and powerful and endless- and you’re not going to do that.”

Nureyev still wasn’t looking at me, and his hand was shaking a little in mine. 

“... I don’t know what right and wrong _is_ , Juno. I’m too far gone. What if I think I’m doing the right thing but it’s just the wrong thing over and over again? Like I’m digging a hole- what if I can never tell?”

“You do know. And if you ever don’t? We’ll solve it together. And we’ll keep fucking going. Every day. And we’ll do better, because- listen to me; nothing good about you comes from them.”

He stared, he smiled. But there was a hollow, scared look behind his eyes. 

“I still don’t understand why. You could have someone whole. There are pieces of me missing. Pieces that might never come back. I don’t know myself, I can’t be trusted, I can’t-,” his voice faltered, came back weaker. “What they’ve done to me is permanent. I can’t be the man you knew.”

“Yeah. Sasha told me that too. I don’t know if I believe her but-,” I shrugged, “I don’t care. There is literally no bottom to how much I don’t care. You think there’s pieces of you missing? Fine. I love whatever’s here and we’ll figure out the rest. _You’re_ what matters.”

Nureyev looked pained, so I kept going before he could start up an argument. “You’re not just- just a thing Dark Matters can do whatever they want with, and you’re not just the sum of whatever impact you have on the world. I mean- I know you can’t really believe that right now. Give me a chance and I’ll convince you, but- you matter. You fucking matter.”

He didn’t answer, he squeezed my hand. 

“Juno, where would we even _go_?” There was a breathless, laughing noise at the edge of his voice. 

Well. Here came the hard sell. 

“I have a job offer. Off planet. As far under Dark Matters’ radar as we can go. It’s from people who… I don’t know if I trust them exactly. I trust them to not want to hurt people more than they want to hurt them. Which is a lot better than most employers. But-,” I winced preemptively, “The job itself- well, they’re criminals. So it’s crime.”

Nureyev’s eyes had still been unfocused, but he turned to me now. I decided to take that as a good sign, even if it did come with a predictably sceptical frown. “You want me to make amends for my criminal past by… returning to life as a criminal?”

Well, yeah, fair question. 

“No. I want you to leave with me. And we’ll see what it is they’re planning on doing, and if we don’t want to be involved I trust them to let us go. Somewhere far away from here, far away from Dark Matters. Maybe- maybe with fucking trees or- or whatever. We’ll make it work. We’ll do the best we can, and we’ll be together.” 

No reply from him, not for a good ten seconds. 

“Do you know when it was that I realised how very much I- I wanted to stay with you?” He was looking at our hands again.

I found myself smiling. I couldn’t stop it.

He hadn’t said ‘no’. 

“Tell me.”

Nureyev’s frown turned contemplative, still hard edged. “When you almost fell into the Core. When- when you fell, when I caught you. You were hanging by my hands, my glasses came off and I-”

He shook his head, he was smiling. Tripping over his words. Uncertain and scared and trying through it.

“Up until that second I knew I had to save you to stop the Soul. But then- when you almost died, when afterwards you gave me your phone so I would save myself, when you talked to me, when you- you were _there_ \- it became something else. It became that- hell.“

He frowned, shook his head, and with a quiet, focused voice and effort; “... It became that- that I didn’t want to go back to Dark Matters.” 

And that was all it took to make me want to jump up and run away with him that goddamn second, but-

“I don’t know if I’m able to- if I’m _worthy_ , but- but I think… I think, if I can…” Nureyev swallowed, gave his head another shake, “That that was when I realised that I love you.”

“Hell.” I breathed. “Well- fuck. You know there’s really no way I’m letting Dark Matters take you now, right?”

Nureyev laughed, breathless, smiling, and he was still looking at our hands. 

“I’m serious. I mean- however this shook out, I wasn’t going to leave you to be ‘Agent N’.” I was grinning at him, it felt like my whole chest was breaking open. “If you hadn’t gone against them and I’d had to drag you away I would have. But-” 

Our eyes met. 

“I don’t have to. Do I?”

He didn’t answer, not right away. Then, finally;

“I don’t know what I would _be_ if I wasn’t part of them. If I left with you.”

“Well.” I said quietly and with the bone deep certainty that I’d never have to let him go again, “I don’t either. But I know he’s worth being.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE ARE DONE
> 
> Thank you for joining me on this four month novella-length stress-relief project. 
> 
> Once again, Pholo (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pholo/profile) helped me out with reading this chapter and making sure it didn’t suck. I am pretty sure they are the ruler of TPP fics so you should check their stuff out. 
> 
> To be clear, this ending is not supposed to be a cliffhanger. Of course Nureyev left with him. Juno did like fifteen consecutive speeches at him. You can’t say no to that.
> 
> Also on the subject of Nureyev not getting his memories back: so I don’t want to contribute to the culture of Sad Queer Stories, and I originally was going to imply that he could get restorative surgery. However I have a friend who told me while I was writing this that she has large scale traumatic amnesia- not exactly what’s going on in this fic but it made me rethink him being ‘cured’. If you don’t like it then maybe the Curemother includes a brain manual? 
> 
> If this AU continued, which I have no plans of doing, imagine the following scenarios:  
> \- Juno probably doing the fancy auction heist with Buddy as a mother/daughter team to avoid Dark Matters.  
> \- Vespa still not trusting Nureyev but relating to him HARD when she hears what happened. Probably eventually taking him under her wing.
> 
> Also huh I guess this eventually turned out to be a fix it fic huh? Nureyev definitely ain’t betraying the space fam here. 
> 
> Thanks a bunch folks!
> 
> PS Please tell me if the final twist got you I’m very curious about if I landed it


End file.
